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DR.  McCOSH'S  WORKS. 


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PHILOSOPHY   OF   REALITY 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  REALITY 


SHOULD  IT  BE  FAVORED  BY  AMERICA? 


BY 


JAMES  McCOSH,  LL.  D.,  D.  D.,  LIT.  D. 

KX-PRBSIDKNT   OF   PRINCETON   COLLEGE 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1894 


:  ,•  •  v 


•   ,  » 


Copyright,  1894, 
BT  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  and  Company. 


PREFACE. 


THIS  little  work  embraces  the  article  I  read  at  the 
great  exhibition  at  Chicago  on  "  Reality  :  What  Place  it 
should  hold  in  Philosophy."  It  also  contains  my  little 
work,  "  The  Prevailing  Types  of  Philosophy :  Can  they 
logically  reach  Reality  ?  " 

The  work  is,  to  some  extent,  negative  and  undermin- 
ing; it  points  out  a  chasm  in  modern  philosophy.  I 
would  not  give  it  to  the  public  were  it  not  that  I  have 
previously  presented  the  positive  and  constructive  side 
in  my  larger  work  en  "  First  and  Fundamental  Truth." 
I  wish  the  two  works  to  go  together,  as  constituting 
what  I  have  been  able  to  do  for  fundamental  philosophy. 

Agnosticism  is  upheld  and  propagated  in  the  present 
day  by  several  influential  men,  such  as  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  and  Professor  Huxley.  It  is  in  the  air,  and 
our  young  men  have  to  breathe  it  and  suffer  the  conse- 
quences. It  is  evidently  exercising  a  relaxing  influence 
on  the  faith  and  doctrinal  convictions  of  the  rising  gener- 
ation. It  is  in  my  view  the  grand  office,  at  present,  of 
the  higher  philosophy,  to  meet  and  expose  this  doubting 
spirit. 

The  question  is,  are  the  philosophies  of  the  day  fitted 
to  do  this  ? 

M147786 


VI  PREFACE. 

With  our  eyes  open,  we  are  apt  to  look  on  the  scene  at 
some  distance,  rather  than  on  things  that  are  pressingly 
near  and  supposed  to  be  known.  So  it  is  with  mod- 
ern metaphysicians  (it  was  different  with  the  ancient 
Greeks);1  they  direct  their  attention  to  more  remote 
objects  rather  than  those  which  are  close  to  us,  such  as 
Reality. 

We  know  self  and  certain  things  around  us  as  Real ; 
as  having  TO  6V,  Ens,  Being,  Existence.  Now  this  Reality 
requires  to  be  carefully  considered  by  students  of  the 
First  Philosophy,  as  Aristotle  happily  called  it.  I  am  to 
show  that  Reality  is  a  truth  to  be  assumed,  and  that  no 
attempt  need  or  should  be  made  to  establish  it  by 
mediate  proof.  Of  those  who  have  made  the  attempt, 
it  will  be  found  that  they  have  more  in  the  conclusion 
than  they  have  in  the  premises,  and  that  in  fact  they 
have  assumed  reality  in  order  to  prove  it. 

Mr.  Spencer,  the  most  comprehensive  speculator  of  the 
day,  has  brought  philosophy  to  a  crisis.  He  is  doing  for 
later  speculation,  especially  that  of  Kant  and  Hamilton, 
what  Hume  did  for  the  systems  of  Descartes,  Locke,  and 
Berkeley,  that  is,  bringing  them  to  a  reductio  ad  absur- 
dum  by  showing  that  they  deprive  us  of  all  knowledge 
of  the  nature  of  things.  Philosophy  has  to  start  anew 
on  the  track  of  realism.  I  am  not  satisfied  with  the 
agnostic  position  of  Spencer ;  I  am  also  dissatisfied  with 
the  replies  commonly  made  to  him  ;2  they  have  tried  to 
prove  reality,  instead  of  showing  that  we  are  entitled  to 
assume  it. 

1  See  Appendix  A.  2  See  infra,  p.  47. 


PREFACE.  Vll 

I  am  aware  that  the  realistic  views  presented  in  this 
work  are  so  different  from  the  prevailing  ones — are,  in 
fact,  so  revolutionary  —  that  it  will  be  needful  to  pi-ess 
them  upon  the  attention  of  thinkers  before  they  are 
adopted.  This  will  have  to  be  done  by  men  who  have 
greater  influence  among  metaphysicians  than  I  have  been 
able  to  attain.  Of  the  ultimate  reception  of  these  views 
on  Reality  (it  may  be  somewhat  modified)  I  have  not  a 
remaining  doubt. 

I  acknowledge  my  obligations  to  my  pupils,  Professor 
Ormond  of  Princeton  College,  and  Professor  Armstrong 
of  the  Wesleyaii  University,  Connecticut,  for  suggestions 
offered  in  the  construction  of  this  work ;  as  also  to 
another  pupil,  Professor  Winans,  Professor  of  Greek, 
Princeton,  for  aiding  me  in  the  collection  of  passages  ex- 
hibiting Aristotle's  doctrine  of  knowledge  which  I  have 
stated  in  the  Appendix. 

January  1,  1894. 


CONTENTS. 


SECTION  I. 

FAGK 

REALITY:  WHAT  PLACE  IT  SHOULD  HOLD  IN  PHILOSOPHY    ...      1 

SECTION  II. 
WAY  IN  WHICH  REALITY  is  DISCOVERED 7 

SECTION  III. 
WHAT  is  REALITY  ? 9 

SECTION  IV. 
GREEK  PHILOSOPHY 19 

SECTION  V. 
DESCARTES 21 

SECTION  VI. 
THE  EXPERIMENTAL  SCHOOL 22 

SECTION  VII. 
THE  A-PRIORI  OR  KANTIAN  SCHOOL 24 

SECTION  VIII. 
THE  SCOTTISH  SCHOOL 43 

SECTION  IX. 
THE  SENSATIONAL  SCHOOL 50 


X  CONTENTS. 

SECTION  X. 
HUXLEY  AND  HERBERT  SPENCER 55 

SECTION  XL 
REALISM  AND  RELIGION 57 

SECTION  XII. 
THE  RESULTS  REACHED 58 

APPENDIX. 

A.  ARISTOTLE  ON  THE  COGNITIVE  POWERS  OF  THE  MIND    ...  70 

B.  DOCTRINE  OF  DR.  THOMAS  AQUINAS 75 

C.  RECENT  CRITICISMS  OF  KANT 75 

D.  PLACE  OF  INDUCTION  IN  METAPHYSICS 78 


PHILOSOPHY  OP  EEALITY. 

SHOULD  IT  BE  FAVORED  BY  AMERICA? 


SECTION  FIRST. 

REALITY  :    WHAT  PLACE  IT  SHOULD  HOLD  IN 
PHILOSOPHY. 

THIS  is  an  important  question  ;  I  regard  it  as  the  most 
important  in  philosophy  in  the  present  day.  Scanty  sys- 
tems have  arisen  from  the  oversight  of  it. 

I. 

In  establishing  my  positions  I  remark  that  every  one 
believes  in  realities.  Every  one  believes  in  two  kinds  of 
realities.  He  believes  in  his  own  existence.  He  believes 
or  rather  knows  that  he  thinks  and  feels ;  that  he  is 
liable  to  grief  and  joy,  to  hope  and  fear.  He  believes 
and  knows  things  without  him  ;  in  that  man  or  woman, 
in  the  various  organs  of  his  body,  in  that  wall  or  house, 
as  also  in  that  tree  before  him,  in  the  greenness  of  its 
foliage,  in  the  hardness  of  its  trunk,  and  in  the  smell  and 
taste  of  its  fruit. 

We  can  appeal  to  the  proper  tests  in  justifying  reality. 
First  the  objects  are  self-evident.  We  know  ourselves 
by  simply  looking  within,  and  objects  around,  by  simply 
looking  without.  We  need  no  further  evidence.  But 
secondly,  this  is  confirmed  by  the  circumstance  that  this 
belief  or  knowledge  is  necessary ;  we  cannot  be  made  to 


2  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REALITY. 

believe  or  know  otherwise.  We  cannot  be  made  to  be- 
lieve, by  any  argument  or  by  any  reasoning,  that  these 
objects  do  not  exist.  But  all  the  while  we  have  a  belief 
or  conviction  which  abides  with  us.  Then,  thirdly,  this 
belief  or  knowledge  is  universal.  Not  only  do  I  believe 
in  these  objects,  but  every  man  does  the  same.  He  is 
sure  that  he  himself  exists,  and  that  certain  objects 
around  him  exist.  He  carries  this  conviction  with  him 
wherever  he  goes.  Philosophy,  which  is  an  expression  of 
our  nature,  should  do  the  same. 

II. 

Reality  cannot  be  established  by  syllogistic  or  mediate 
proof  of  any  kind.  No  man  can  prove  mediately  his  own 
•existence,  or  the  pains  he  feels  in  his  own  body,  or  the  ex- 
istence of  that  stone  or  plant  which  he  sees  and  touches. 
If  he  is  not  satisfied  with  this  statement  on  its  being 
announced  let  him  try  the  proof.  He  will  find  that  he 
has  no  mediate  proof,  and  that  he  is  assuming  when  he 
imagines  that  he  is  proving.  To  prove  that  there  is  life 
or  mind,  we  must  have  life  or  mind  in  the  premise. 
Without  this  the  alleged  proof  will  evidently  be  illogical. 
For  it  is  acknowledged  on  all  hands  that  in  order  to  a 
right  conclusion  we  must  have  the  object  or  truth  in  the 
conclusion  involved  in  the  premise  or  premises. 

The  attempt  to  prove  Reality  has  ever  led  to  un- 
measurable  confusion  and  error.  Descartes,  the  father 
of  modern  philosophy,  propounded  an  argument,  Cogito, 
ergo  sum.  But  if  the  ego  be  in  the  cogito,  the  whole 
alleged  argument  for  Reality  is  an  evident  assumption, 
for  already  we  have  the  Reality  there.  If  the  ego  be 
not  in  the  cogito,  we  have  no  proof  whatever,  as  what 
we  have  in  the  conclusion  is  not  in  the  premise. 


REALITY:  PLACE  IT  SHOULD  HOLD  IN  PHILOSOPHY.    3 
III. 

Reality  is  got  not  by  reasoning,  but  by  immediate  in- 
spection, by  what  is  usually  called  Intuition.  We  have 
Cognitive  faculties  for  this  purpose,  especially  the  inward 
and  outward  senses.  We  know  ourselves,  and  especially 
our  various  ideas,  moods,  sufferings,  by  self-consciousness. 
We  know  these  extended  things,  by  the  senses  as  cogni- 
tive, particularly  by  sight  and  touch.  We  need  no 
mediate  proof.  In  regard  to  these  things,  proffered  pro- 
bation would  be  felt  as  an  incumbrance  and  would  turn 
out  to  be  invalid. 

We  have  here  primary  truth  which  does  not  need  sup- 
port, but  which  may  give  support  to  other  truth  reared 
upon  it.  Knowing  objects  to  be  real,  we  may  draw  other 
objects  from  them  which  are  also  real  by  argument,  say 
by  mathematics,  by  ordinary  science,  by  common  obser- 
vation. 

There  may  be  times  when  we  are  not  sure  whether 
the  object  is  a  reality  or  a  phantom,  whether  that  white- 
ness seen  in  the  darkness  is  a  ghost  or  a  sheet  put  out  to 
be  dried.     We  are  to  settle  the  question  by  an  examina-  - 
tion  of  the  appearance,  using,  if  need  be,  all  the  senses. 

It  is  to  be  understood  that  when  we  have  the  real  we 
can  also  have  things,  derived  from  it  logically,  also  real. 
Thus  having  the  individual  oak  as  real,  we  have  oaks  in 
general  as  also  real.  The  reality  in  the  singular  goes  up 
into  the  general. 

There  are  some  who  maintain  that  Realism  must  not 
only  establish  the  reality  of  objects,  but  must  show  what 
the  reality  consists  in.  Now,  I  am  willing  to  admit  in 
establishing  reality  we  must  know  somewhat  of  the 
nature  of  the  reality.  It  is  thus  that  we  can  separate  it 
from  other  things,  only  thus  we  can  think  or  speak  of 


4  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

it.  Still  it  is  not  by  psychological  but  by  the  physical 
sciences  that  we  must  determine  the  real  nature  of  the 
object.  Mental  science  must  know  somewhat  of  the 
nature  of  water  before  it  can  declare  it  to  be  a  reality. 
But  it  is  not  psychology  but  chemistry  that  must  settle 
what  this  reality  is,  that  water  is  composed  of  oxygen 
and  hydrogen.  It  is  astronomy  and  not  philosophy  that 
must  show  us  what  is  the  relation  of  the  planets  one  to 
another. 

It  is  to  be  understood  that  while  the  mind  has  the 
Real  by  the  cognitive  powers,  it  may  also  have  the  Ideal 
by  the  imagination,  and  the  two  not  inconsistent  one 
with  the  other.  It  may  form  a  figure  of  ugligness  or 
beauty  to  which  there  is  no  corresponding  fact.  With 
these  we  may  be  amused,  or  we  may  be  exalted  above 
ourselves  and  above  the  earth.  These  fancies  will  pre- 
sent themselves  spontaneously,  or  we  call  them  up  by 
an  act  of  will.  If  reality  has  its  solid  blessings  so  has 
ideality  its  pleasing  fancies.  We  should  profitably  retain 
and  cherish  both.  But  we  should  always  distinguish  be- 
tween them. 

I  should  like  to  inquire  here  how  the  various  systems 
of  philosophy,  ancient  and  modern,  accord  with  these 
views.  I  must  content  myself  here  with  reviewing  one 
system,  but  that  by  far  the  most  influential  for  the  last 
few  ages. 

The  prevalent  philosophy  in  the  present  day  is  that  of 
Kant ;  and  this  in  all  countries,  European  and  American, 
in  which  philosophy  is  valued.  I  wish  it  to  be  under- 
stood that  I  look  on  Kant  as  one  of  our  great  thinkers. 
There  never  can  come  a  time  when  certain  truths  of 
Kant  and  the  German  philosophy  are  to  be  regarded  as 
superseded.  But  Kant  was  guilty  of  one  great  over- 
sight. He  did  not  start  with  Reality  in  his  primitive 


REALITY:   PLACE  IT   SHOULD   HOLD   IN   PHILOSOPHY.        5 

assumptions.  While  we  cannot  dispense  with  him,  the 
crisis  has  come  in  which  the  Critical  Philosophy  should 
be  critically  examined,  when  it  will  turn  out  that  its 
supremacy  should  be  set  aside. 

Kantians  of  all  descriptions  are  forever  referring  to 
space  and  time  as  forms  of  sense.  I  do  not  say  that  too 
much  importance  has  been  attached  to  space  and  time 
while  light  has  been  thrown  upon  them  by  these  discus- 
sions. But  along  with  these  forms  there  should  have 
been  assumed  Reality  in  the  things  made  known  to  us. 
Reality  is  not  an  end  to  be  gained  after  a  process  or  by 
a  process,  but  is  a  means  to  an  end.  We  are  to  begin 
with  Reality  and  carry  it  with  us,  and  it  should  run  on 
throughout  the  whole  of  life. 

There  is  admirable  system  in  the  Categories  and  in 
the  Ideas  with  which  Kant  follows  up  his  Forms  of  Sense ; 
and  in  them  Reality  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  superseded 
or  set  aside.  But  if  we  have  not  Reality  throughout 
the  foundation  is  insecure ;  and  hence  the  vacillations 
through  which  the  German  philosophy  has  passed,  and 
which  are  not  to  be  arrested  till  Reality  has  its  place  to 
stay  the  whole. 

Kant  began  with  phenomena.  But  the  phrase  has  two 
senses.  In  ordinary  science  it  means  a  fact  to  be  ex- 
plained, that  is  referred  to  its  law.  Or  it  may  retain  its 
Greek  meaning  and  signify  appearance  to  be  explained. 
It  is  in  this  sense  that  Kant  uses  the  phrase.  With  these 
appearances  he  starts,  and  from  these  he  never  could  de- 
rive and  infer  any  real  object  without  having  in  the  con- 
clusion what  was  not  in  the  premises.  He  should  have 
begun  with  Realities  as  made  known  by  the  conscious- 
ness and  the  senses.  Only  thus  can  we  have  a  true 
philosophy  with  a  well  laid  superstructure.  A  philosophy 
which  does  not  thus  begin  with  Reality  must  always  have 
something  insecure  in  its  foundation. 


6  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REALITY. 

We  have  come  to  a  crisis  in  philosophy.  We  must 
start  anew,  taking  with  us  what  we  have  omitted,  and 
thus  rectify  the  oversight  of  which  we  have  been  guilty. 
No  philosophy  is  to  be  accepted  which  does  not  hold 
resolutely  by  Reality. 

It  is  well  known  that  German  philosophy  has  been 
largely  swaying  German  theology.  It  is  worthy  of  in- 
quiry whether  the  neglect  of  Reality  has  not  been  injur- 
ing both  its  philosophy  and  its  theology,  and  has  been 
injuriously  affecting  both  the  philosophy  and  theology  of 
Great  Britain  and  America,  and  been  the  sources  of  their 
vacillation  in  late  years.  Even  the  first  truth  in  theology 
implies  Reality,  "  for  the  invisible  things  of  God  are 
clearly  seen  from  the  things  that  are  made,"  which  things 
that  are  made  clearly  imply  Reality. 

Hitherto  America  has  had  no  special  philosophy  as  the 
ancient  Greeks  had,  as  the  Scotch  have  had,  and  the 
Germans  have  had.  But  there  is  a  philosophy  lying  be- 
fore it,  and  it  should  appropriate  it,  and  call  it  its  own  — 
an  advance  beyond  Locke,  beyond  the  Scottish  School 
—  the  American  philosophy.  This  would  be  in  thorough 
accordance  with  the  American  character  which  claims  to 
be  so  practical. 

The  change  from  the  speculative  to  this  thoroughly 
realistic  philosophy  would  not  be  unlike  that  from  the 
European  Monarchies  to  the  American  Republics.  Where 
could  this  be  inaugurated  so  appropriately  and  auspi- 
ciously as  at  the  World's  Great  Exposition  ? 


SECTION  SECOND. 

WAY  IN  WHICH  EEALITY  IS  DISCOVERED. 

STARTING  in  this  way  with  real  objects,  we  prosecute 
farther  investigations  by  Induction.  This  is  the  method 
pursued  by  Reid  and  the  Scottish  School.  It  was  derived 
originally  from  Francis  Bacon,  and  had  already  reached 
many  important  results  in  physics  in  the  discoveries  of 
Sir  Isaac  Newton  and  others.  The  Scottish  School  per- 
ceived this,  and  were  anxious  to  secure  like  results  by 
the  same  method  in  the.  study  of  the  human  mind,  using 
self-consciousness  rather  than  the  senses  in  the  gathering 
of  the  facts.  In  this  way  they  had  been  so  far  success- 
ful as  may  be  seen  in  the  account  which  Reid,  Stewart, 
and  others  had  given  of  the  faculties  of  the  mind.  Not 
that  they  for  one  instant  regarded  this  Induction  as  the 
foundation  of  their  philosophy,  which  had  its  foundation 
within  itself  in  the  principles  of  common  sense  and  the 
fundamental  laws  of  thought  and  belief.  But  they  rep- 
resented Induction  as  the  means  of  discovering  these 
laws.  Thus  they  built  up  a  philosophy  resting  on  deeper 
principles,  but  discovered  by  the  cautious  and  safe 
method  of  Induction. 

We  may  consider  more  carefully  the  way  in  which 
reality  is  discovered.  Take  this  stone  and  this  tree :  I 
perceive  them  to  be  realities  at  once  by  the  sense  ot 
sight  and  the  sense  of  touch,  and  I  cannot  be  made  to 
decide  otherwise.  I  cannot  prove  it  immediately  or  by 
syllogism,  for  I  have  no  prior  premises  to  establish  the 


8  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

point  that  this  stone  exists,  that  this  tree  exists.  It  is 
the  same  with  any  other  object,  such  as  this  chair  and 
this  table,  this  door  and  this  window,  this  church  or  this 
steeple.  The  mind  has  cognitive  powers  by  which  it 
discerns  these  objects,  that  they  exist. 

By  the  same  or  further  cognitive  powers  it  may  come 
to  know  further  qualities  of  these  objects  ;  of  this  stone 
that  it  is  hard,  or  of  that  log  that  it  is  brittle  ;  or  of  this 
tree  that  it  grows  slowly  or  grows  rapidly  ;  of  this  chair 
that  it  can  hold  only  one  person  ;  of  this  table  that  it  is 
square  ;  of  this  door  that  it  is  wide ;  of  this  window  that 
it  is  narrow ;  of  this  church  that  it  can  hold  a  thousand 
people  ;  of  this  steeple  that  it  is  one  hundred  feet  high. 
Thus  we  may  increase  our  knowledge  of  objects  from 
day  to  day  till  the  number  comes  beyond  our  calculation. 

When  there  is  an  addition  or  multiplication  of  real 
objects,  there  is  no  lessening  or  increasing  of  this  reality, 
which  continues  the  same.  In  the  same  way,  by  the 
inner  sense  or  reflection,  we  at  once  discover,  not  by  rea- 
soning, something  in  our  hope  and  grief  and  joy.  Hav- 
ing reality  in  the  individual  stone  or  tree,  we  have  reality 
in  the  general  notion  in  stones  or  trees.  Having  reality 
in  the  qualities  of  the  concrete  object,  we  have  reality  in 
the  abstract;  thus,  reality  in  the  stone  implies  reality 
in  its  qualities  of  hardness. 

Reality  is  in  all  these  quarters.  I  think  we  are  enti- 
tled to  call  the  inquiry  into,  and  the  results  which  issue 
from  it,  the  Philosophy  of  Realism,  and  to  adopt  it  as 
the  true  philosophy. 


SECTION  THIRD. 

WHAT  IS   REALITY? 
I. 

EVERYBODY  knows  the  existence  of  Reality;  or,  to 
vary  the  phrase  when  we  speak  of  things  acting,  every 
one  knows  Actuality. 

Of  all  thoughts,  or  perhaps  I  should  rather  say  of  all 
perceptions,  it  seems  to  be  the  clearest.  Yet  it  is  one  of 
the  most  difficult  to  explain,  or  even  express.  This  is 
simply  because  it  is  so  simple :  it  does  not  admit  of  anal- 
ysis ;  it  has  no  distinct  elements  into  which  to  resolve  it, 
and  there  is  no  common  genus  or  species  under  which  to 
place  it.  The  only  way  of  showing  its  nature  is  to  point 
to  examples  of  it.  We  look  on  the  wall  of  the  room  in 
which  we  sit,  and  know  it  to  be  real.  We  see  a  bird  fly- 
ing, and  know  it  to  be  an  actuality.  We  are  conscious  of 
ourselves  in  pain,  and  we  are  sure  of  our  own  existence  in 
a  state  of  pain. 

There  may  be  realities  which  we  cannot  discover :  we 
do  not  know  whether  the  planet  Jupiter  is  inhabited. 
But  there  are  things  which  we  know  to  be  real.  We 
know  body  as  it  is  presented  to  us  as  extended  and  ex- 


10  THE   PHILOSOPHY    OF  REALITY. 

ercising  power  or  properties.  In  self -consciousness  we 
know  self  as  feeling,  knowing,  willing.  Thus  we  know 
the  manifestations  of  body,  such  as  shape,  resistance,  and 
mobility.  Thus  we  know  the  manifestations  of  self,  as 
knowledge,  desire,  resolution.  The  qualities  which  we 
perceive  in  ourselves,  specially  such  as  love,  benevolence, 
justice,  are  actualities.  All  these  differ  from  imagina- 
tions, say  a  fairy,  a  ghost,  a  mermaid;  and  commonly 
the  two  can  be  distinguished.  We  call  the  one  real,  the 
other  unreal. 

n. 

We  cannot  explain  or  even  understand  the  facts  of 
which  we  are  conscious  without  calling  in  two  cognitive 
powers,  the  external  and  the  internal  senses.  These  can- 
not be  resolved  into  anything  else,  say,  as  is  often  at- 
tempted, into  sensations,  impressions,  ideas ;  for  none  of 
these  contain  cognition,  and  cannot,  therefore,  give  us 
knowledge  by  accumulation  or  combination.  Nor  can 
knowledge  be  drawn  from  them  by  reasoning ;  for,  not 
being  in  the  premises,  they  cannot  reach  it,  except  by 
falling  into  the  acknowledged  fallacy  of  having  more  in 
the  conclusion  than  in  the  premises. 

In  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  external  things,  sensa- 
tions are  involved ;  feelings  in  the  organism  by  all  the 
senses :  but  these  not  having  knowledge  cannot  give  it  to 
us  logically.  In  looking  at  the  table  before  us,  there  is 
the  exercise  of  coats  and  humors,  of  rods  and  cones,  and 
of  the  optic  nerve ;  but  we  do  not  notice  these  in  vision ; 
their  existence  has  been  made  known  to  us  by  the  phys- 
iologist. In  hearing,  the  tympanum,  the  hammer,  the 
stirrup,  and  auditory  nerve  do  not  form  part  of  our  intui- 
tive knowledge ;  they  are  merely  the  means  of  giving  an 
exact  field  to  our  perceptions,  but  are  no  part  of  the  real- 


WHAT   IS  REALITY?  11 

ity  directly  perceived  by  us.  With  these  concurrences 
we  look  immediately  upon  the  thing,  as  we  look  through 
perfectly  transparent  glass  upon  the  tree  without  notic- 
ing the  medium. 

In  standing  up  for  realism  it  is  to  be  understood  that 
we  hold  by  the  known  actuality  of  mind,  with  its  percep- 
tions, thoughts,  and  feelings,  as  well  as  of  matter  with 
its  extension  and  force.  We  have  as  clear  a  perception 
of  the  one  as  of  the  other.  We  know  both  by  a  power 
of  intuition  or  direct  inspection ;  the  one  by  percep- 
tion of  the  senses,  the  other  by  self-consciousness.  We 
know  each  of  them  by  its  peculiar  properties :  the  one  as 
resisting  our  energy  and  extended  in  three  dimensions ; 
the  other,  as  knowing  and  judging  with  appetencies  and 
feelings.  We  possess  these  knowing  powers  naturally; 
we  carry  them  with  us  at  all  times ;  they  are  in  our  very 
nature  and  constitution. 

It  is  to  be  noticed  that  we  know  not  only  body  and 
mind :  we  know  the  affections  or  qualities  of  both ;  indeed, 
it  is  by,  or  rather  with,  their  qualities  that  we  know  the 
substances.  We  know  extension  and  solidity  in  matter ; 
cognition  and  emotion  in  mind.  In  particular  we  should 
insist  that  we  know  moral  qualities,  such  as  good  and 
evil,  and  the  obligation  lying  upon  us  to  do  the  one  and 
avoid  the  other.  It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  in  ethics 
to  claim  that  there  is  a  known  reality  in  these  moral 
qualities,  quite  as  much  so  as  there  is  extension  in  body 
and  perception  in  mind.  , 

III. 

But  it  is  asked  contemptuously,  Do  you  really  believe 
that  we  perceive  things  as  they  are  ?  that  things  really 
are  what  they  appear  to  us?  If  you  say  so,  then  you 
must  hold  that  a  man  in  a  mist  is  larger  than  when  in 


12  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

clear  air ;  that  the  sun  when  setting  has  a  more  expanded 
surface  than  at  midday ;  that  the  sky  is  not  an  expanse, 
but  a  concave  firmament ;  that  the  ocean  as  we  look  on 
it  from  the  shore  is  a  perfect  level,  without  any  curva- 
ture; that  the  lines  in  a  railway  draw  nearer  to  each 
other  as  they  recede  ;  that  a  measured  mile  seen  across 
an  arm  of  the  sea  is  longer  than  when  seen  across  hill 
and  dale  on  land.  Such  puzzles  seem  to  show  that,  what- 
ever supposed  things  be,  they  are  not  what  they  appear 
to  us  to  be.  Pointing  to  these  difficulties,  sceptical  phi- 
losophers argue  that  we  can  never  discover  realities.  The 
great  body  of  philosophers  employ  themselves  in  showing 
how  reality  is  to  be  reached  by  a  process  which  they 
point  out.  I  believe  that  none  of  the  theories  which  they 
advance  are  satisfactory. 

In  order  to  remove  the  perplexities  which  have  gath- 
ered round  the  subject,  it  is  of  importance  to  clear  up 
two  points :  First,  what  are  the  realities  which  we  pro- 
fess to  discover  ?  These  are :  — 

1.  All  that  we  know  by  intuition,  that  is,  by  an  imme- 
diate perception  of  the  object.  Thus  we  know  matter  as 
extended  and  resisting  our  energy.  We  also  know  mind 
as  knowing,  thinking,  feeling,  resolving.  Of  this  intui- 
tive knowledge  there  are  three  criteria  clear  and  decisive. 
First,  it  is  self-evident.  We  know  the  object  at  once  on 
looking  at  it.  In  looking  at  the  table,  I  am  sure  there  is 
a  colored  surface  before  me.  Being  thus  self-evident,  it 
is,  Secondly,  necessary ;  we  cannot  be  made  to  believe 
otherwise.  Thirdly,  it  is  universal,  that  is,  held  by  all 
men  on  the  objects  being  presented  to  them.  These  are 
the  tests  of  primary  truths,  and  they  sanction  the  convic- 
tion that  we  know  realities.  2.  All  that  is  drawn  from 
this  by  logical  deduction.  Ever  since  the  time  of  Aris- 
totle we  have  had  a  test  of  the  legitimacy  of  inference 


WHAT   IS   REALITY?  13 

in  the  syllogism,  which  is  expounded  in  the  treatises  of 
formal  logic.  3.  All  that  is  got  by  scientific  induction. 
We  have  tests  of  the  legitimacy  of  this  in  the  Preroga- 
tive Instances  of  Bacon,  and  more  especially  in  John 
S.  Mill's  Canons  of  Induction,  expounded  in  the  books 
of  Inductive  Logic.  To  this  class  of  realities  belong 
the  ascertained  laws  of  nature,  such  as  gravitation,  chem- 
ical affinity,  the  association  of  ideas.  In  these  we  rise 
above  the  individual  facts  revealed  by  external  and  inter- 
nal perception,  and  correlate  the  facts.  The  laws  thus 
reached  are  not  apodictic,  or  demonstrative  like  mathe- 
matical truths.  But  they  are  to  be  accepted  provision- 
ally as  realities,  which,  it  is  allowed,  may  be  modified  and 
rectified  by  advancing  discoveries ;  thus  gravitation  is  a 
reality,  but  may  possibly  be  resolved  in  the  end,  as  its 
discoverer  believed,  into  a  higher  reality. 


IV. 

Secondly,  in  order  to  determine  the  precise  reality,  we 
have  to  draw  certain  distinctions.  I  have  unfolded  these 
elsewhere,1  but  to  make  our  discussion  complete  it  is  ex- 
pedient to  repeat  them  here,  and  apply  them  to  the  sub- 
ject before  us.  Our  object  is  to  determine  the  reality, 
and  we  have :  — 

1.  To  distinguish  between  the  real  object  and  the  sen- 
sations  and   feelings   associated  with   it;    generally  be- 
iween   our  sensations  and   perceptions.     The  former  of 
these  have  indeed  a  sort  of  reality  as  affections  of  self, 
and  they  have  no  external  reality,  and  we  fall  into  error 
when  we  suppose  that  they  have. 

2.  As  the  most  important,  we  have  to  distinguish  be- 
tween our  original  and  acquired  perceptions.     From  an 

1  See  First  and  Fundamental  Truths,  part  ii.  book  i.  ch.  iii. 


14  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REALITY. 

early  period  of  our  lives,  during  infancy  and  at  all  later 
dates,  these  two  are  closely  associated  with  each  other, 
and  it  is  at  times  difficult  to  distinguish  them.  We  claim 
a  certainty  in  our  original  perceptions  only ;  there  may 
be  error  in  our  derived  perceptions,  and  no  reality  in 
them. 

I  believe  we  can  determine  precisely  what  we  know 
intuitively  and  directly  by  the  various  senses.  The  eye 
gives  us  a  colored  surface,  nothing  more.  Hearing  gives 
us  a  sound  in  the  ear,  from  which  we  argue  a  cause,  which 
is  found  by  science  to  be  undulations.  In  smell  we  have 
an  affection  of  the  nostrils ;  in  taste,  an  affection  of  the 
palate;  in  touch  proper,  or  feeling,  an  affection  of  the 
part  from  which  the  afferent  nerve  comes.  In  the  mus- 
cular sense  and  energy,  we  have  resistance  offered,  im- 
plying resisting  energy.  These  are  our  primary  sense- 
cognitions,  all  noticed  by  self-consciousness ;  they  reveal 
realities,  and  upon  them,  by  legitimate  processes,  we  may 
rear  other  knowledges,  also  of  reality,  as  derived  from 
what  is  real.  But  we  may  also  draw  erroneous  deduc- 
tions when  we  pass  beyond  our  intuitive  knowledge.  We 
do  not  know  distance  intuitively  by  the  eye  or  by  the 
ear,  and  we  declare  that  the  rock  seen  across  the  sea  is 
only  one  mile  distant,  when  actual  measurement  finds  it 
to  be  two.  I  have  shown  that  to  preserve  us  from  error 
we  have  to  draw  a  like  distinction  in  memory  between 
our  original  memories  and  our  constructed  memories,  in 
which  latter  there  may  be  errors. 

3.  There  is  the  distinction  between  the  Primary  and 
Secondary  Qualities  of  Matter.  This  distinction  has  not 
always  been  correctly  enunciated,  but,  when  properly 
viewed,  it  has  a  most  important  place  in  determining 
what  reality  there  is  in  the  supposed  qualities  of  matter. 
The  Primary  Qualities,  such  as  extension  and  resisting 


WHAT   IS  REALITY?  15 

energy,  are  perceived,  as  Reid  has  remarked,  directly ; 
and  are  in  all  matter,  as  Locke  has  shown.  These  always 
imply  realities.  The  Secondary  Qualities  are  reached 
by  argument,  and  the  conclusion  may  not  be  correctly 
drawn.  Thus  in  heat  there  is  a  reality  in  the  organic 
sensation ;  but  the  external  cause,  supposed  to  be  a  mode 
of  motion,  is  discoverable  only  by  a  scientific  process,  to 
be  tested  by  the  canons  of  induction. 

By  calling  in  such  obvious  principles  and  distinctions 
as  these,  we  are  able  to  stand  up  for  the  trustworthiness 
of  the  senses.  What  we  see  intuitively  by  the  eye  is  not 
the  sky,  or  the  sea,  or  the  rock,  or  the  man  in  the  mist, 
at  a  distance,  but  the  object  on  the  eye  which  is  always 
real. 

We  are  thus  able  without  difficulty  to  determine  what 
is  real  within  us  and  around  us  more  satisfactorily  than  is 
commonly  done  by  metaphysicians,  by  a  process  which, 
if  we  examine  it,  will  be  seen  to  reach  reality  only  by 
unknowingly  assuming  it. 

V. 

As  to  this  knowledge,  it  should  always  be  understood 
that  it  is  only  partial.  "  We  know  in  part."  This  doc- 
trine is  opposed,  on  the  one  hand,  to  Gnosticism,  which 
claims  to  know  all ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  Agnosti- 
cism, which  professes  to  know  nothing.  Between  these 
two  we  should  hold  by  Mereognosticism,  which  holds 
that  we  know,  but  only  in  part.  What  we  do  know  we 
should  stand  by,  or  rather  stand  upon,  as  a  foundation 
to  give  us  stability,  and  on  which  we  may  rear  other  real- 
ities. 

As  we  all  spontaneously  believe  in,  or  rather  know, 
reality,  so  it  should  have  a  place,  a  deep  and  a  thoroughly 


16  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

pervading  place,  in  all  philosophic  systems.  Whatever 
else  philosophy  may  be,  it  is  a  science  of  foundations, 
and  should  commence  with  and  rest  upon  the  reality  of 
things  as  a  basis.  An  intellectual  system  which  does  not 
contain  and  embrace  actuality  must  be  a  speculation 
rather  than  a  philosophy. 

We  should  not  attempt  to  prove  reality  by  mediate 
proof.  Indeed,  it  cannot  be  demonstrated  by  any  such 
process.  The  very  constitutive  principle  of  Logic  or  in- 
ference is,  that  there  be  nothing  in  the  conclusion  which 
was  not  contained  in  the  premise  (or  premises).  If  re- 
ality be  not  in  the  premise,  you  cannot  legitimately  get 
it  in  the  conclusion.  The  conclusion  we  reach  here  is, 
that  in  all  philosophy  we  must  assume  reality.  Beyond 
this  we  can  do  nothing  more  than  show  that  we  are  en- 
titled to  assume  it. 

Not  that  it  is  to  be  represented  as  unproven  and  un- 
provable ;  it  has  its  proof  in  itself.  Not  that  it  is  to  be 
described,  as  it  often  is  in  the  present  day,  as  unknown 
and  unknowable ;  it  is  the  first  known,  the  best  known 
of  all  truths.  We  need  not  try  to  prove  it  by  mediate 
evidence,  for  we  have  immediate  evidence,  which  is 
stronger,  as  on  it  mediate  proof  must  depend  in  the  last 
resort.  It  does  not  need  other  evidence,  it  has  its  evi- 
dence in  itself;  it  is  self-evident.  It  does  not  require 
external  support ;  it  stands  on  its  own  basis,  and  gives 
support  to  other  truths.  You  cannot  find  any  other  truth 
clearer  or  more  certain  by  which  to  establish  it.  Any 
external  probation  might  rather  unsettle  it  as  tending  to 
throw  it  off  its  proper  foundation.  We  do  not  reach  it 
by  a  process  ;  it  is  rather  the  starting-point  of  many  pro- 
cesses. It  is  not  a  conclusion  reached ;  it  is  a  premise 
necessary  to  innumerable  conclusions. 

It  is  possible,  indeed,  speculatively  and  in  words,  to 


WHAT  IS  REALITY?  17 

deny  reality.  But  naturally  and  spontaneously  we  know 
all  the  while  that  the  very  denial  implies  the  existence 
of  the  one  who  makes  the  denial.  A  man  may  affirm  that 
the  river  before  him  does  not  exist ;  but  he  shows  that 
he  believes  in  its  existence  by  his  declining  to  cast  him- 
self into  it.  He  may  say  there  is  no  carriage  on  the  road 
before  him ;  but  he  hastens  to  go  out  of  its  way  when  it 
approaches.  He  may  insist  that  there  is  no  sword  in 
that  man's  hand;  but  he  turns  aside  when  it  would 
pierce  him.  He  may  assure  us  that  he  does  not  exist ; 
but  in  the  very  declaration  he  manifests  his  own  exist- 
ence. 

Now,  the  question  I  have  to  ask  is,  What  do  the  lead- 
ing philosophic  systems  of  the  day  make  of  reality  ?  I 
am  to  put  this  question  to  each  of  them.  Do  they  ac- 
knowledge it,  or  do  they  deny  it  ?  Do  they  accept  it  in 
whole,  or  only  in  part?  Do  they  attempt  to  prove  it,  or 
simply  assume  it  ? 

Some  acknowledge  that  there  is  reality  in  certain  ob- 
jects and  deny  it  in  certain  others,  both  of  which  are 
supported  by  the  same  intuitive  evidence.  Thus  some 
claim  that  there  is  actuality  revealed  by  the  external 
senses,  but  not  by  the  internal  sense,  and  are  landed  in 
materialism.  Others  hold  firmly  by  what  we  know  of 
mind  or  self,  but  discard  the  fleeting  phenomena  of  bod- 
ily senses,  and  are  idealists.  Some  seriously  try  to  prove 
the  existence  of  reality ;  but  as  they  evidently  fail,  there 
are  others  who  feel  as  if  we  have  only  a  phenomenal 
world,  or  a  sort  of  dreamland.  The  fault  of  the  great 
body  of  metaphysicians  has  been  that  they  have  acted  on 
no  principle,  and  have  admitted  actuality  in  some  cases 
and  denied  it  in  others,  both  having  a  like  evidence  or 
want  of  evidence ;  and  have  thus  made  philosophy  capri- 
cious and  inconsistent. 


18  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

Let  us  understand  definitely  what  is  the  question  I 
put.  It  is  not  what  is  the  belief  held  and  acted  on  by 
the  system-builders  as  individuals,  for  practically  they 
have  all  acted  on  the  reality  of  things.  David  Hume 
said  again  and  again,  "Though  I  show  what  are  the 
sceptical  issues  of  the  philosophy  of  the  day,  in  actual 
life  I  believe  and  act  as  other  people."  Nor  is  my  ques- 
tion how  the  philosophers  wished  their  systems  to  be 
understood.  Locke  and  Kant  both  held  that  their  sys- 
tems were  realistic;  but  both  philosophies,  it  can  be 
shown,  were  idealistic  on  the  one  hand  and  sceptical  on 
the  other  in  their  logical  tendencies.  We  may  be  sure 
that  all  philosophies  will  issue  sooner  or  later  at  the 
place  to  which  logic  drives  them. 

There  is  a  Nemesis  in  philosophy  as  there  is  in  moral- 
ity. Hume  the  sceptic  was  the  Avenger  who  drove  to 
its  consequences  the  errors  that  prevailed  from  Descartes 
to  Berkeley.  Herbert  Spencer  is  the  Avenger  who  is 
leading  on  to  Agnosticism  the  error  that  has  remained  in 
the  prevailing  philosophies.  We  shall  have  to  inquire 
how  we  are  to  build  on  the  ground  which  has  been  left 
waste. 

Philosophy  in  this  age  takes  three  types :  I.  The  SEN- 
SATIONAL and  EXPERIENTIAL;  II.  The  A-PRIOKI  or 
KANTIAN  ;  III.  The  SCOTTISH.  These  stand  before  us 
as  mountain  chains  with  valleys  between,  but  with  ranges 
of  hills  proceeding  from  them,  and  at  times  joining  on  to 
each  other.  They  are  found  not  only  in  Great  Britain 
and  America,  but  in  Germany,  France,  Italy,  and  all  civ- 
ilized countries.  The  question  I  put  is,  What  do  these 
make  of  reality  ? 


SECTION  FOURTH. 

GEEEK  PHILOSOPHY. 

HERE  it  may  be  interesting  to  notice  that  the  aim  of 
the  Greek  philosophy  —  the  earliest  deserving  the  name, 
all  prior  being  loose  and  undiscriminating  —  was  to  dis- 
cover reality  as  opposed  to  appearances.  Its  earliest 
metaphysical  school  was  the  Eleatic,  and  its  search  was 
for  existence,  —  TO  oV  and  TO  clvaL.  In  their  subtle  disqui- 
sitions, they  often  confused  what  is  simple,  and  made 
assertions  which  have  no  meaning.  It  can  be  shown 
that  the  Greek  philosophy  kept  it  steadily  in  view  to  dis- 
cover, not  the  absolute,  as  the  German  historians  so 
often  represent  them  as  doing,  but  the  real.  This  was 
the  aim  of  Socrates  when  he  insisted  so  much  on  defini- 
tion. Plato  found  the  real  among  the  fleeting  in  his 
Ideas.  Aristotle  classified  the  real  under  his  ten  Cate- 
gories. The  Stoics  found  reality  specially  in  virtue  as 
the  only  good,  and  the  Epicureans  in  pleasure.  It  was 
because  this  was  their  search  that  the  Greek  philosophy 
has  been  so  abiding,  and  that  students  ever  turn  back  to 
it,  while  other  systems  have  been  swallowing  each  other 
and  have  had  only  a  temporary  sway.  So,  then,  as  we 
assume  spontaneously  the  existence  of  a  self  and  a  non- 
self,  let  us  also  assume  it  in  philosophy,  as  the  reflex 
expression  of  our  spontaneities.  Philosophy  should  com- 
mence with  it,  and  take  it  with  it  by  implication  wher- 
ever it  goes.  In  all  its  investigations,  it  should  presup- 


20  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REALITY. 

pose  and  proceed  upon  it.     A  philosophy  without  it  is  a 
speculation  and  not  truth.1 

The  relation  between  mind  and  body  has  always  been 
regarded  as  a  mystery  which  we  cannot  thoroughly  clear 
up.  Yet  we  may  reverently  inquire  what  the  process 
is,  and  state  what  it  is  so  far  as  we  know  it.  Mr.  J.  S. 
Mill  has  shown  that  all  physical  causation  is  dual  or 
plural ;  it  consists  of  two  or  more  agents  constituting  the 
cause,  and  producing  a  change  on  each  of  the  agents.  A 
blow  is  inflicted  on  a  man's  brain  which  causes  his  death  ; 
here  the  cause  is  the  blow  and  the  state  of  the  brain,  and 
the  effect,  the  death,  is  the  joint  result  of  the  two.  So  in 
Sense-Perception  there  is  an  outward  object,  —  it  may  be 
in  the  body  or  beyond  the  body,  and  thus  standing  in  a 
particular  relation  to  the  mind  ;  the  effect  is  the  percep- 
tion of  the  object.  So,  in  all  cases,  there  is  a  mutual 
affection  of  the  external  object,  which  in  the  last  resort 
is  the  nerves  and  brain  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  hand  the  mind,  with  its  perceptive  power ;  and  the 
result  is  a  perception  of  the  object.  This  seems  to  be  a 
statement  of  the  facts.  There  is  no  doubt  mystery,  that 
is,  some  things  which  we  do  not  understand  ;  but  there  is 
no  more  mystery  than  in  any  other  causation :  the  two 
agents  have  the  property  of  acting  on  each  other.  But 
if  this  be  the  true  account,  possibly  after  all  only  a 
partial  account,  we  are  delivered  from  all  the  useless 
intermediaries  which  metaphysicians  of  late  ages  have 
introduced  to  explain  what  they  do  not  explain,  and 
which  may  need  no  explanation.  Aristotle  briefly  ex- 
presses the  exact  facts :  "  The  sensible  objects  call  the 
perceptive  sense  into  activity."  2 

1  See  Appendix  A.  2  See  Appendix  A. 


SECTION  FIFTH. 

DESCARTES. 

THIS  doctrine  of  Reality  following  the  Greek  philos- 
ophy continued  during  the  middle  ages,  except  among 
the  small  body  of  sceptics,  but  all  this  was  changed  by 
Descartes,  the  great  philosopher  of  the  French  School. 

Cogito  ergo  sum  was  his  aphorism,  thereby  seeking  to 
strengthen  his  belief  in  reality  of  self,  founding  it  upon 
argument,  with  a  premise  and  a  conclusion.  But  if 
the  ego  be  in  the  cogito,  the  conclusion  is  a  mere  pleo- 
nasm. If  the  ego  be  not  in  the  cogito,  the  conclusion 
does  not  follow,  and  the  conclusion  is  not  legitimate. 
Some  have  denied  that  this  is  really  an  argument.  It  is 
represented  as  a  primitive  judgment,  seen  by  them  to  be 
true  at  once.  But  surely  Descartes  knew  what  an  argu- 
ment was  ;  and  when  he  put  his  statement  in  the  form  of 
an  argument,  he  must  have  regarded  it  as  such ;  but  in 
doing  this  he  did  not  properly  express  the  process  that 
passes  in  the  human  mind,  which  is  not  Cogito  ergo  sum, 
but  ego  cognitans  assumed.  This  is  a  truth  on  which 
other  truths  may  rest.  But  from  that  day  to  this,  phi- 
losophy has  always  had  some  sort  of  process  in  the  way  in 
which  we  know  ourselves* 


SECTION   SIXTH. 

THE  EXPERIENTIAL   SCHOOL. 

LOCKE  may  be  regarded  as  a  representative  of  this 
school.  He  is  not  a  sensationalist,  though  he  is  often  so 
designated.  Often  have  I  heard  him  spoken  of  in  the 
lectures  of  German  professors  by  the  name  of  Locke",  as 
the  representative  sensationalist.  But  Locke  allots  to 
man  two  inlets  of  ideas,  sensation  and  reflection  ;  and 
attaches  the  greater  importance  to  the  second.  To  re- 
flection we  are  indebted  for  all  our  ideas  of  mind  and  its 
qualities,  of  spiritual  things  and  of  God.  Besides,  he 
gives  to  mind  a  special  power  of  intuition  which  per- 
ceives at  once  the  agreement  and  disagreement  of  ideas 
(not  of  things),  and  thence  rises  to  demonstration  ; 1  and 
he  affirms  that  ethics  might  be  made  demonstrative, 
though  he  never  showed  how  this  could  be  done.2 

Locke  was  personally  a  determined  realist,  and  be- 
lieved that  his  philosophy  was  realistic;  but  he  never 
reached  a  full  and  satisfactory  reality.  Primarily,  ac- 
cording to  his  theor}',  we  perceive  ideas  within  ourselves ; 
knowledge  is  simply  the  perception  of  the  agreement  or 
disagreement  of  ideas,  and  we  get  all  our  ideas  and  know- 
ledge by  experience,  which  is  limited,  and  can  never  rise 
above  itself,  any  more  than  water  can  rise  above  its  foun- 
tain. The  consequence  is,  that  he  was  never  able  to 
1  Essay,  b.  iv.  ch.  L  2  Essay,  b.  iv.  1 7. 


THE   EXPERIENTIAL  SCHOOL.  23 

reach  truth  above  experience,  to  universal  and  necessary 
truth  holding  true  in  all  time  and  in  all  places.  He 
believed  most  firmly  in  God  and  in  infinity ;  but,  as 
Hume  showed,  he  could  not  by  mere  experience  prove 
the  existence  of  a  God  who  is  beyond  all  experience  of 
sense  and  consciousness. 

His  greatest  admirers  were  never  able  to  show  how  he 
could  find,  on  his  theory  of  knowledge,  an  actuality  ex- 
ternal to  the  mind.  He  tells  us :  "  'T  is  evident  the  mind 
knows  not  things  immediately,  but  only  by  the  interven- 
tion of  the  ideas  it  has  of  them." l  His  whole  account 
of  human  understanding  proceeds  on  this  principle.  He 
fondly  held  that  the  ideas  were  resemblances  and  repre- 
sentatives of  things ;  but  he  had  no  proof  of  this,  and  did 
not  pretend  to  have  any.  The  mind  perceives  ideas,  but 
does  not  perceive  things,  and  therefore  cannot  possibly 
know  that  the  ideas  which  it  knows  are  copies  of  the 
things  which  it  can  never  know.  We  are  thus  shut  up 
into  an  ideal  world,  and  have  no  means  of  breaking  out 
from  this  shell  or  prison,  and  can  never  know  that  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  body  beyond  our  idea  of  it. 

Berkeley  started  from  this  position,  and  followed  out 
Locke's  theory  to  its  legitimate  consequences,  maintain- 
ing that  ideas  are  the  reality,  and  constitute  the  whole 
of  the  reality  which  man  can  find.  Hume  interposed  at 
this  point,  and  drove  the  whole  process  to  scepticism, — 
to  what  would  now  be  called  agnosticism.  We  have  im- 
pressions, and  ideas  the  reproduction  of  impressions,  and 
have  and  can  have  nothing  else. 

1  Essay,  iv.  L 


SECTION  SEVENTH. 

THE  A-PKIORI    OB  KANTIAN    SCHOOL. 


LOCKE'S  Philosophy  was  the  prevailing  one  from  the 
date  of  his  "  Essay  on  Human  Understanding,"  in  1690, 
to  about  1830,  when  there  was  a  shaking  of  thought, 
which  issued  in  the  second  French  Revolution  and  the 
Reform  Bill  of  England,  and  a  reaction  in  philosophy 
against  the  prevailing  empiricism  among  conservative 
minds  afraid  of  the  too  rapid  advances  of  radical  and 
revolutionary  opinions.  Since  that  time  —  indeed,  fifty 
years  prior  in  Germany  —  Kant's  philosophy  has  been 
the  prevailing  one  among  deeper  thinkers  all  over  the 
thinking  world.  It  was  set  up  to  oppose  the  scepticism 
of  Hume,  which  awoke  Kant,  as  he  tells  us,  from  his 
dogmatic  slumbers.  It  was  also  meant,  following  Leib- 
nitz, to  counteract  the  empiricism  and  supposed  sensa- 
tionalism of  the  "  very  celebrated  Locke,"  as  Kant  desig- 
nates him. 

It  embraces  a  vast  body  of  profound  truth  firmly  con- 
catenated, and  has  brought  out  more  fully  than  was  ever 
done  before  some  of  the  deeper  powers  in  the  human 
mind.  It  reached  the  highest  crest  of  the  wave  at  the 
centenary,  in  1881,  of  Kant's  great  work  on  the  "  Kritik 
of  Pure  Reason."  I  may  be  mistaken,  but  I  think  I  see 
signs  of  late  years  of  its  being  subjected  to  a  severe  ques- 


THE  A-PRIORI  OB  KANTIAN  SCHOOL.  25 

tioning  on  the  part  of  those  who  think  that  some  of  its 
principles  are  keeping  us  away  from  reality.  In  one  of 
its  forms,  that  of  its  high  speculative  ideas,  it  has  gone 
up  years  ago  into  the  clouds  of  Hegelianism,  from  which 
sober  thinkers  are  turning  away;  in  another  form,  in 
which  it  has  only  appearances  and  unknown  things,  it 
has  run  aground  into  the  clay  of  the  Agnosticism  of  Her- 
bert Spencer,  whom  one  half  of  our  ambitious  metaphysic 
youths  are  following,  and  the  other  half  are  criticising. 
It  is  time  that  we  have  a  thorough  criticism  of  the  crit- 
ical philosophy,  such  as  we  had  half  a  century  ago  of  the 
philosophy  of  Locke. 

For  years  past  I  have  been  urging  general  objections 
to  the  system  of  the  great  German  metaphysician.1  In 
this  paper  I  am  simply  inquiring  whether  it  has  reached 
and  embraced  reality. 

The  Kritic  of  Pure  Reason,  reared  as  a  castellated 
structure  strong  and  compact,  is  the  Ehrenbretstein  of 
German  philosophy.  It  is  a  skilfully  constructed,  but  is 
an  artificial  and  not  a  natural  product.  It  will  be  seen 
as  we  advance  that  it  does  not  begin  with  reality,  and  so 
cannot  find  it  as  it  goes  on,  nor  end  with  it  logically.  It 
keeps  reality  at  a  distance,  lest  it  should  lead  into  mate- 
rialism, which  pretends  to  be  so  real.  But  Realism  em- 
braces both  a  material  and  a  spiritual  actuality,  and  each 
should  have  its  own  place  in  a  natural  system  in  which 
there  is  a  body  provided,  where  the  spirit  may  dwell  and 
appear  in  living  form. 

n. 

1.  The  Method  pursued,  the  Critical,  does  not  reveal 
Reality  to  us.  Kant  acted  rightly  in  departing  from  the 

1  See  my  work,  Realistic  Philosophy,  vol.  ii.,  article  on  "  Criti- 
cism of  Critical  Philosophy." 


26  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REALITY. 

Dogmatic  Method,  which  had  been  used  by  Descartes 
and  so  many  philosophers  prior  to  his  time.  That 
method  is  used  in  mathematics,  where  we  have  axioms  to 
start  with,  which  we  need  only  clearly  to  define.  But  it 
is  not  applicable  in  sciences  which  deal  with  scattered 
facts,  and  which  we  should  pursue  in  the  Inductive 
Method,  in  mental  science,  with  self-consciousness  as  the 
agent  which  makes  known  the  facts  to  us. 

Kant  takes  credit  for  introducing  a  new  Method, 
neither  the  Dogmatic  nor  the  Inductive,  but  the  Critical. 
Pure  Reason,  he  says,  can  criticise  itself.  By  this  Method 
he  constructed  his  system,  which  has  been  the  admiration 
on  the  part  of  profound  thinkers,  even  of  those  who  may 
not  regard  it  as  the  plan  of  Nature  or  of  God.  I  ac- 
knowledge that  criticism  has  a  function  to  perform :  it 
has  to  examine  the  works  constructed  by  man,  such  as 
literary  style,  theories  of  poetry  and  the  drama,  works 
of  art,  as  paintings,  statues,  and  buildings.  But  we  do 
not  venture  to  criticise  the  works  of  Nature  and  of  God ; 
our  business  is  simply  to  discover  what  these  are,  and  to 
fall  in  with  them.  No  one  has  ever  ventured  to  con- 
struct physical  science  by  criticism  ;  say  chemistry,  or 
biology,  or  physiology.  Were  such  an  attempt  made,  it 
would  issue  in  a  series  and  succession  of  systems  jostling 
each  other,  with  no  means  of  effecting  a  settlement. 
These  effects  have  actually  followed  from  the  applica- 
tion of  the  critical  methods  to  mental  philosophy.  Since 
the  days  of  Kant,  there  has  been  a  succession  of  systems 
superseding  each  other  with  no  principle  of  final  appeal. 
Every  few  years  there  appears  a  fresh  and  independent 
youth,  proclaiming:  Kant  has  not  followed  a  certain 
principle  to  its  consequences;  let  us  carry  it  out  thor- 
oughly. It  was  thus  that  philosophy  advanced  from 
Kant  to  Hegel.  Another  says,  There  is  a  grand  principle 


THE  A-PRIORI   OR    KANTIAN    SCHOOL.  27 

which  has  been  overlooked :  let  us  introduce  it  and  it  will 
mediate  between  the  systems;  and  thus  a  new  system 
has  been  introduced  to  multiply  the  confusion.  This 
was  the  mode  of  procedure  in  ancient  physics,  and  the 
Stoics  had  one  cosmology,  and  the  Epicureans  another. 
All  this  has  been  abandoned  in  modern  science ;  and  we 
have  a  means  of  settling  disputes,  not  by  criticism,  but 
by  conformity  of  theories  to  the  facts  of  Nature.  The 
Critical  Method  has  carried  us  away  from  Reality,  and 
should  now  be  let  down  from  its  high  place  as  chief,  to 
occupy  a  subordinate  position. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  the  truths  both  of  physics 
and  metaphysics  are  to  be  submitted  to  criticism.  The 
profound  wisdom  of  Bacon  insisted  on  the  inductive  sci- 
ences beginning  with  "  Necessary  Rejections  and  Exclu- 
sions," and  Whewell  insists  on  the  "  Decomposition  of 
Facts."  But  this  is  merely  to  put  irrelevant  matter  out 
of  the  way  to  enable  us  to  study  by  induction  the  facts 
of  our  nature  without  and  within  us. 

Metaphysical  philosophy  is  the  science  of  First  and 
Fundamental  Truths,  and  these  are  to  be  discovered 
solely  by  the  careful  observation  of  what  passes  in  our 
minds.  But  let  it  be  understood  that  our  induction  of 
them  does  not  give  to  these  truths  their  validity;  it 
merely  enables  us  to  observe  them.  This  is  a  distinction 
which  I  have  been  laboring  to  make  students  of  mental 
philosophy  see  and  acknowledge  and  proceed  on.1  In- 
duction certainly  does  not  give  authority  to  Primitive 
or  A-Priorl  truth ;  but  it  is  necessary  in  order  to  our  be- 
ing able  to  discover  its  nature,  and  to  use  it  in  philoso- 
phy. The  careful  induction  of  Newton  did  not  make, 
create,  or  invent  the  law  of  gravitation,  or  give  to  it  its 
function ;  but  it  was  necessary  to  make  it  known  to  us. 
1  See  Appendix  D. 


28  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

Such  fundamental  and  necessary  truths  as  personal  iden- 
tity, substance,  causation,  moral  obligation,  responsibil- 
ity rising  to  a  knowledge  of  God,  are  in  our  very  nature, 
and  have  their  authority  in  themselves  and  from  God. 
But  it  is  one  of  our  highest  prerogatives  that  we  can  rise 
by  internal  reflection  and  induction  to  the  precise  know- 
ledge of  these  truths,  and  use  them  in  philosophy  and 
tbeolog}r. 

The  Kritik  of  the  Speculative  Reason  embraces  three 
points:  I.  ^ESTHETIC,  or  the  a-priori  elements  in  the 
Senses;  II.  ANALYTIC,  or  the  a-priori  elements  in  the 
Understanding ;  III.  DIALECTIC,  or  the  a-priori  elements 
in  Reason.  I  am  to  subject  these  to  an  examination. 


ILL 

2.  In  ^ESTHETIC  he  misses  Reality  ly  making  our 
primitive  perceptions  look  to  phenomena  and  not  to  things. 
What  is  meant  by  phenomenon  ?  In  scientific  investiga- 
tion it  is  commonly  used  to  denote  a  fact  revealed  in 
order  to  be  referred  to  a  law.  But  in  the  philosophy  of 
Kant  it  is  employed,  in  the  original  Greek  sense  of  the 
word,  as  an  appearance.  According  to  Kant  and  his 
school,  the  mind  in  sense-perception  and  in  self-conscious- 
ness begins  with  phenomena  in  the  sense  of  appearances. 
This,  it  can  be  shown,  prevents  it  from  reaching  realities. 

It  might  be  argued  that  appearance  of  itself  implies 
reality  ;  a  phenomenon  is  a  thing  appearing.  In  one  of 
Longfellow's  poems,  there  is  a  dispute  between  the  tree 
on  the  river's  banks  and  the  tree  reflected  in  the  waters 
as  to  which  is  the  reality.  The  question  can  be  settled ; 
there  is  a  reality  in  both,  but  of  a  different  kind.  The 
tree  on  the  banks  has  solidity,  the  tree  in  the  stream  is  a 
reflection  of  light.  In  all  appearances  presented  to  us, 


THE  A-PRIORI   OR   KANTIAN   SCHOOL.  29 

there  is  a  thing  that  appears,  and  what  we  have  to  ascer- 
tain is  the  precise  actuality.  It  can  be  shown  that  this 
was  the  search  of  the  Greek  philosophy.  In  the  Kantian 
system  there  is  an  appearance  presented,  but  this  appear- 
ance is  entirely  subjective ;  that  is,  in  the  mind.  The 
mind  in  perception  cannot  look  beyond  itself,  and  so  can- 
not know  anything  external.  He  argues,  indeed,  in  the 
preface  of  the  second  edition  of  the  Kritik :  "  The  real 
existence  of  things  outside  of  us,  and  independently  of  our 
consciousness  of  them,  is  an  assumption  without  which  he 
could  not  have  found  even  a  beginning  for  his  philoso- 
phy." I  am  glad  to  find  him  making  such  an  assump- 
tion ;  it  is  an  assumption  given  us  by  our  consciousness. 
But  he  tries  to  prove  it  by  a  very  doubtful  probation. 
"  The  simple  but  empirically  determined  consciousness  of 
my  own  existence  proves  the  existence  of  objects  in  space 
outside  of  me."  I  cannot  see  that  the  conclusion  follows 
from  the  premise.  Whether  assumed  or  proven,  it  is  clear 
that  he  holds  by  the  existence  of  external  things;  but 
the  nature  of  these  external  things  cannot  be  known  by 
us.  Even  the  mind  itself  is  not  known  as  a  thing.  This 
is  one  of  Kant's  most  pernicious  errors,  more  so  than  even 
his  denial  that  we  know  anything  of  the  nature  of  mat- 
ter. Nothing  remains,  as  we  shall  see  forthwith,  but  a 
conglomerate  of  forms,  categories,  and  ideas,  embracing 
no  reality  beyond  themselves. 

We  now  see  where  Herbert  Spencer  and  the  Agnostics 
of  our  day  get  their  views  and  their  nomenclature.  They 
deny  that  they  are  sceptics,  and  that  they  do  not  believe 
in  a  reality  of  things ;  but  then  they  affirm  that  the  na- 
ture of  things  cannot  be  known  by  us.  Mr.  Spencer 
thinks  that  there  is  a  God,  but  then  he  is  unknown  and 
must  ever  be  unknowable  by  man. 

Kant  draws  the  distinction  between  phenomenon  and 


30  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

noumenon,  — between  the  thing  appearing  and  the  Ding 
an  Sich,  the  thing  in  itself,  or,  as  Dr.  Mahaffy  translates 
it,  the  thing  per  se.  The  distinction  will  come  before  us 
once  and  again.  It  is  an  altogether  unsatisfactory  one. 
We  cannot  know  that  a  thing  exists  without  knowing 
something  about  it,  without  knowing  it  under  the  aspect 
in  which  it  makes  its  existence  known  to  us.1  In  sense- 
perception  we  know  not  only  that  the  thing  before  us, 
say  that  book,  exists,  but  we  know  it  in  part ;  we  know 
it  as  a  colored  surface.  We  are  certainly  not  omniscient; 
we  do  not  know  all  about  any  one  thing,  about  ourselves, 
or  other  things.  But  we  know  what  we  know,  know  so 
much  of  the  thing,  not,  it  may  be,  of  the  thing  in  itself, 
which  is  meaningless,  as  a  thing  cannot  be  in  itself,  but 
of  the  thing-,  the  very  thing.  In  denying  this,  which  he 
does,  Kant  is  undermining  realism,  and  leaving  us  in  the 
darkness  of  nihilism. 

IV. 

3.  In  ^ESTHETIC  and  ANALYTIC  he  makes  us  perceive 
things,  not  as  they  are,  but  as  made  or  modified  by  forms 
in  the  mind. 

First,  our  perceptions  or  intuitions  by  the  senses  and 
by  self  -  consciousness  come  to  us  under  the  forms  of 
Space  and  Time,  —  Space  being  the  form  of  the  bodily 
senses,  and  Time  being  the  form  both  of  the  external  and 
internal  senses.  We  are  not  to  look  on  these  two  forms, 
Space  and  Time,  as  having  any  objective  existence,  any 
independent  or  real  being.  They  are  forms  in  the  mind 
imposed  on  what  we  perceive.  It  follows  that  we  do 
not  and  cannot  know  the  world  without  us,  nor  even  the 
internal  self  as  it  is.  We  perceive  everything  as  through 

1  I  have  all  along  been  insisting  on  this.  It  is  confirmed  by  Zel- 
ler.  See  Appendix  C. 


THE  A-PRIORI  OR    KANTIAN    SCHOOL.  31 

stained,  and  it  may  be  twisted  glass,  which  gives  its 
color  and  form  to  what  comes  under  our  notice.  At  this 
point  Kant's  idealism  enters,  and  it  runs  on  through  the 
whole  of  his  philosophy,  till,  as  we  shall  see,  it  culmi- 
nates in  pure  idealism.  In  opposition,  Realism  holds  that 
Space  and  Time,  as  well  as  the  things  contained  in  them, 
are  realities,  and  are  what  we  intuitively  perceive  them. 
We  know  matter — so  much  of  matter;  we  know  mind — 
so  much  of  mind ;  and  we  also  know  space  and  time,  in 
which  matter  and  mind  are  —  so  much  of  space  and  time. 
As  having  such  a  knowledge,  we  believe  in  the  mathe- 
matical truths  derived  from  them  by  legitimate  inference. 
If  we  allow,  with  Kant,  that  they  are  not  objective  real- 
ities, we  shall  be  constrained  by  logic  to  hold  that  the 
things  perceived,  body  and  mind,  are  also  ideal.  We 
notice  a  body  in  space  and  an  event  in  time,  and  we  have 
the  same  evidence,  an  immediate  evidence,  of  the  exist- 
ence of  all  four,  the  body,  the  space,  the  event,  and  time. 
Secondly,  the  mind  begins  with  the  perceptions  of 
sense,  and  then  the  understanding  pronounces  judgments 
upon  these.  The  judgments  are  pronounced  according 
to  mental  forms  called  Categories.  Great  pains  are 
taken  to  show  how  these  Categories  are  deduced.  They 
are  very  much  the  same  as  the  judgments  of  the  Aristo- 
telian or  Formal  Logic,  of  which  Kant  was  professor :  — 
I.  QUANTITY:  II.  QUALITY: 

Unity,  Reality, 

Plurality,  Negation, 

Totality.  Limitation. 

III.  RELATION:  IV.  MODALITY: 

Inherence  and  Subsistence,  Possibility  and  Impossibility, 

Causality  and  Dependence,  Existence  and  Non-Existence, 

Reciprocity  of  Agent  and  Necessity  and  Contingence. 
Patient. 


32  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

I  am  not  concerned  to  examine  these  forms,  or  deter- 
mine whether  they  are  the  best  possible  classification  of 
judgments.  Modern  logic  makes  the  judgments  fewer. 
But  they  have  been  made  greatly  more  scientifically  cor- 
rect by  the  criticism  of  Kant.  Here,  however,  our  in- 
quiry is  simply,  Have  we  come  nearer  to  actuality  ?  On 
the  contrary,  we  have  gone  farther  away  from  it.  We 
have  subjected  what  we  know  of  it  to  a  farther  modify- 
ing process.  These  Categories,  which  are  all  merely  sub- 
jective, impose  themselves  upon  the  concepts  which  have 
been  formed  by  space  and  time  being  imposed  on  the  sen- 
sibility. The  place  allotted  to  the  Real  seems  to  me  to 
be  very  artificial  and  awkward.  He  does  not  place  it  in 
^Esthetics,  or  the  domain  of  the  senses ;  we  do  not  im- 
mediately perceive  it.  He  places  it  in  Analytic,  under 
judgment.  The  Real  which  he  reaches  is  a  mere  form 
in  the  mind,  not  implying  anything  objective  out  of  the 
mind.  Taking  this  view,  the  tendency  of  the  German 
philosophy  has  been  ever  towards  idealism.  Even  the 
sensationalists  among  them,  in  reducing  all  our  powers 
to  sensation,  do  not  regard  our  sensations  as  giving  us  a 
knowledge  of  things. 

One  of  the  Categories  is  Cause  and  Effect.  It  obliges 
us  to  look  on  every  event  as  having  a  cause,  but  this  does 
not  prove  that  it  really  has  a  cause ;  we  can  be  assured 
of  this  only  by  the  experience  of  sense,  which  cannot  rise 
above  what  we  experience,  and  cannot  therefore  give  us 
any  universal  truth.  We  would  prove  that  a  God  exists 
arguing  from  the  world,  which  is  a  visible  effect,  —  "a 
manufactured  article,"  as  Sir  John  Herschel  expresses 
it,  —  to  a  cause  in  God.  But  the  argument  is  invalid,  as 
we  are  not  allowed  to  assert  that  causation  is  universal. 
As  Hume  argues,  we  are  not  entitled,  from  causation  in 
our  limited  experience,  to  infer  a  causation  in  world-mak- 


THE  A-PRIORI   OR    KANTIAN    SCHOOL.  33 

ing,  which  is  beyond  our  experience.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  all  the  twelve  Categories,  as  unity,  as  existence, 
as  necessity;  they  carry  no  weight  beyond  the  experi- 
ence of  sense.  It  thus  appears  that  ^ESTHETIC,  or  the 
science  of  the  S3nses,  does  not  give  us  things  as  they  are ; 
that  ANALYTIC,  or  the  science  of  the  understanding, 
takes  us  farther  away  from  things ;  and  we  have  now  to 
turn  to  DIALECTIC,  which  inquires  what  reality  there  is 
in  these  processes  of  sense  arid  understanding. 


V. 

In  the  ^Esthetic  and  Analytic,  Kant  is  building  up: 
starting  with  phenomena  formulated  by  Space  and  Time, 
and  going  on  to  the  Categories,  or  the  various  forms  of 
logical  judgment.  Under  the  head  of  Dialectics,  he  in- 
quires what  validity  there  is  in  the  structure  which  he 
has  reared. 

Rising  above  Sense,  rising  above  Understanding,  the 
mind  can  form  Ideas  of  Pure  Reason,  as  he  calls  them. 
These  are  Substance,  the  Interdependence  of  Phenomena, 
and  God.  These  Ideas  give  us  a  Rational  Psychology, 
a  Rational  Cosmology,  and  God.  We  feel  now  as  if  a 
domain  were  thrown  open  to  us  wide  and  pure  as 
heaven  itself.  We  hasten  to  enter  it,  and  hope  that  we 
have  here  a  lasting  possession  where  we  can  abide  for- 
ever, and  hold  communion  with  the  loftiest  thoughts. 
But  Kant  proceeds  to  tell  us  that  this  grand  scene  is  a 
mirage. 

Kant  is  too  powerful  a  logician  not  to  see,  and  too 
honest  a  man  not  to  admit,  that  these  Forms  of  Sense 
and  Categories  of  the  Understanding  cannot  give  us 
known  and  objective  existence.  He  uses  stronger  lan- 
guage than  I  have  done  in  expounding  his  system,  in 


34  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  KEALITY. 

showing  that  neither  sense  nor  understanding  can  reveal 
reality.  They  do  not  profess  to  give  it  to  us :  they  can- 
not give  it,  for  they  do  not  themselves  have  it.  Hitherto 
he  has  been  rearing  an  edifice,  stone  upon  stone,  all  of 
Cyclopean  dimensions.  Now  the  giant  takes  as  much 
pains  to  pull  it  down.  The  constructive  work  is  ended ; 
the  destructive  work  begins.  As  Hamilton  puts  it,  the 
intellectual  Samson  pulls  down  the  house  upon  himself. 

As  to  Substance,  we  have  an  Idea  of  it,  and  it  seems 
to  stablish  us ;  but  it  is  only  a  form  in  the  mind.  He 
examines  Descartes'  fundamental  argument,  "  Cogito 
ergo  sum."  If  the  ego  be  in  the  cogito,  it  is  all  a  mere 
assumption ;  if  it  is  not  in  the  cogito^  we  cannot  put  it 
in  the  conclusion  without  having  more  in  the  conclusion 
than  in  the  premises. 

As  to  the  Interdependence  of  Phenomena,  he  labors  to 
prove  that,  on  the  supposition  that  phenomena  are  facts 
and  not  mere  forms,  we  are  landed  in  a  succession  of 
contradictions  or  Antinomies.  As  an  example,  we  are 
led,  on  the  one  hand,  to  hold  that  the  world  has  a  begin- 
ning in  time,  and,  on  the  other,  that  it  has  had  no  be- 
ginning in  time.  For  myself,  I  hold  that  pure  Reason 
alone  cannot  establish  either  of  these  positions;  but 
Kant  holds  that  it  can  prove  both,  and  that  the  two 
counteract  each  other  and  leave  us  only  zero. 

As  to  the  Idea  of  God,  we  are  obliged  to  contemplate 
Him  theoretically,  but  we  can  prove  his  existence  only 
on  the  principle  of  cause  and  effect ;  but  we  have  no  evi- 
dence that  this  is  universal,  and  so  the  argument  is  not 
conclusive.  Speculatively  there  is  a  God,  logically  and 
really  there  is  no  proof  of  the  existence  of  God. 

Let  us  realize  the  position  to  which  we  have  been 
brought.  Let  us  see  where  we  stand,  on  rock  or  quag- 
mire. In  Sense  we  have  some  reality  in  phenomena 


THE  A-PRIORI  OR    KANTIAN   SCHOOL.  35 

which  are  subjective,  but  imply  an  external  reality.  In 
Understanding  we  have  less  reality,  but  we  have  sub- 
jective Categories  binding  the  appearances.  In  Reason 
we  have  only  the  ghosts  of  departed  realities.  Our  in- 
heritance does  not  consist  of  coins,  but  only  of  paper 
currency  with  no  guarantee  behind. 

It  might  seem  as  if  in  being  led  to  do  all  this  work, 
and  passing  through  all  these  difficult  passages,  we  had 
been  deprived  of  our  promised  wages.  But  Kant  denies 
this,  and  reminds  us  that  he  has  never  given  us  any  as- 
surance of  our  finding  reality.  There  is  no  deception,  for 
there  has  been  no  promise.  But  he  admits  fully  and 
proclaims  decidedly  that  there  is  Illusion.  We  all  fall 
naturally  and  necessarily  into  the  illusion,  just  as  when 
we  stand  on  the  shore  we  see  the  ocean  level  and  not 
rounded  ;  just  as  when  we  look  up  into  the  sky  we  see  it 
as  a  vault  and  not  an  expanse. 


VI. 

Kant  calls  in  Moral  Reason  to  save  us  from  the  nes- 
cience of  the  speculative  Reason.  This  Moral  Reason 
announces  a  fundamental  law :  it  is  expressed  in  the 
Categorical  Imperative  (an  admirable  phrase),  and  is 
simply  a  modification  of  our  Lord's  supreme  law,  "  Do 
unto  others  as  ye  would  that  they  should  do  unto  you." 
It  is,  "  Act  according  to  a  rule  which  might  be  applied  to 
all  intelligences."  This  implies  that  man  is  free,  and  as 
a  corollary  that  he  is  responsible ;  that  there  is  a  judg- 
ment day,  and  therefore  a  future  life,  and  a  God  to 
guarantee  the  whole.  Morality,  immortality,  and  God 
are  thus  bound  up  together. 

I  think  that  Kant  means  us  to  understand  that  he  has 
here  reached  reality.  The  moral  law  and  its  corollaries, 


36  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REALITY. 

freedom,  responsibility,  and  a  judgment  day,  are  all 
actual  existences.  He  thus  held  resolutely  by  great 
truths  which  preserve  us  from  scepticism,  and  lead  the 
way  to  and  guarantee  other  truths.  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  he  meant  these  moral  truths  to  sanction  the 
validity  of  the  truths  of  the  speculative  reason,  specially 
the  existence  of  responsible  beings  who  are  under  the 
moral  law.  He  thus  counteracts  by  his  moral  principles 
the  nescience  of  his  speculative  principles.  Viewed 
under  this  aspect,  the  tendency  of  his  philosophy  is  all 
for  good. 

However,  it  has  been  doubted  whether  he  can  reach 
and  retain  an  independent  moral  reason  in  consistency 
with  his  speculative  nescience.  The  nescient  principle 
carried  out  logically,  seems  to  bear  against  the  moral 
reason  quite  as  much  as  the  speculative  reason.  How 
does  moral  perception  come  in  ?  He  says  that  the  senses 
alone  have  the  power  of  intuition  which  he  denies  to  the 
Reason.  But  if  the  reason  have  no  power  of  intuition, 
how  can  we  come  to  discern  and  appreciate  moral  good? 
If  it  comes  in  by  the  gate  of  sense,  shaped  by  the  Cate- 
gories and  idealized  by  pure  reason,  then  we  are  landed 
in  nescience  by  the  moral  reason  as  we  are  by  the  specu- 
lative reason.  Whatever  may  be  Kant's  doctrine  on  this 
subject,  it  is  evident  that  his  moral  law,  if  it  has  any 
meaning,  must  apply  to  living  beings  who  are  supposed 
to  be  under  it ;  but  we  can  know  that  there  are  such 
beings  only  through  the  forms  of  sense,  the  Categories 
of  the  understanding,  and  the  ideas  of  pure  reason ;  and 
these  he  shows  are  illusions.  I  do  not  see  how  he  can 
logically  reach  the  reality  of  the  moral  power,  or  the 
corollary  which  he  derives  from  it,  the  existence  of  God. 
From  ideal,  that  is,  illusory  premises,  we  can  draw  only 
ideal  and  illusory  conclusions.  From  ideal  facts  we  can 


THE  A-PRIORI  OR    KANTIAN    SCHOOL.  37 

infer  only  an  ideal  God  :  this  in  truth  seems  to  be  all 
that  some  of  the  theologies  of  Germany  have. 

It  has  been  urged  all  along  —  ever  since  the  publi- 
cation of  the  "  Kritik  "  —  that  Kant  is  inconsistent  in 
standing  up  for  the  reality  of  the  moral,  and  denying 
that  of  the  speculative  reason.  I  believe  that  both  stand 
on  the  same  foundation,  which  is  a  foundation  of  reality. 
But,  whether  consistently  or  inconsistently,  Kant  has 
done  immeasurable  good  by  standing  up  so  resolutely 
for  the  reality  and  validity  of  the  Moral  Reason. 


VII. 

I  may  notice  here  the  tendency  for  the  last  few 
ages  to  acknowledge  that  the  intelligence  of  man  leads 
to  infidelity,  from  which  we  may  be  saved  by  Faith  or 
Feeling.  This  style  of  speaking  was  derived  from  Kant 
and  Jacobi,  and  has  been  adopted  by  many  German, 
British,  and  American  thinkers.  They  tell  us,  with  a 
sigh,  often  of  affectation,  that  the  understanding  leads 
to  scepticism,  and  then,  with  Jacobi,  call  in  faith  to  lift 
them  out  of  the  slough.  I  do  not  believe  that  there  is 
any  such  schism  in  the  mind  which  God  has  made  in  his 
own  image.  I  deny  that  one  part  of  our  nature  contra- 
dicts another.  I  deny  that  the  understanding,  following 
its  laws,  issues  logically  in  scepticism.  I  am  sure  that 
he  who  thinks  that  intelligence  ends  in  scepticism  will 
not  be  brought  back  to  truth  by  a  loose  appeal  to  faith. 
The  sceptic  who  has  attacked  the  validity  of  reason, 
having  tasted  blood,  will,  on  a  like  principle,  attack  the 
trustworthiness  of  faith.  I  am  sure  that  intelligence  and 
faith  both  reveal  truth  to  us,  each  in  its  own  way ;  the 
one  of  things  that  are  seen,  the  other  of  things  that  are 
not  seen. 


38  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF   REALITY. 

In  the  philosophy  of  Kant  there  are  two  powerful  but 
discordant  elements,  the  ideal  and  the  nescient,  each  of 
which  has  produced  its  proper  effect.  The  ideal  ran  its 
course  in  the  first  instance ;  passing  through  Fichte  and 
Schelling,  and  culminating  in  Hegel,  being  pantheistic 
throughout.  I  do  not  wonder  that  Kant,  who  wished  to 
be  regarded  as  a  realist,  was  offended  with  Fichte,  who 
seized  certain  of  his  principles  and  followed  them  out  to 
a  pure  idealism.  Schelling  worked  to  correct  the  one- 
sidedness  of  Fichte,  and  brought  in  object  as  well  as  sub- 
ject ;  but  made  the  two  identical  and  both  subjective,  so 
that  he  can  have  no  objective  reality.  And  what  shall 
I  say  of  Hegel?  He  has  dived  down  into  depths  and 
mounted  into  heights  to  which  I  cannot  follow  him,  and 
in  which  human  logic,  as  it  appears  to  me,  has  no  place. 
When  I  find  that  he  employs  his  a-priori  powers  to  set 
aside  the  demonstration  of  Newton,  that  he  holds  Being 
and  Not-Being  as  identical,  that  Being  and  Thinking  are 
the  same,  and  that  contradictories  may  both  be  true,  I 
regard  his  system  as  a  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the  whole 
of  his  philosophy.  I  have  heard  in  Berlin  an  eminent 
professor  of  his  school  proving  to  his  own  satisfaction 
that  all  is  one  :  that  you  and  I,  God  and  Nature,  mind 
and  body,  truth  and  error,  good  and  evil,  are  all  one. 
In  his  all-comprehensive  system,  which  embraces  every- 
thing, he  has  a  reality  claimed  by  him,  but  it  is  a  reality 
merely  in  his  a-priori  forms.  He  would  turn  away  with 
disdain  from  the  reality  which  I  am  pleading  for,  and 
which  insists  that  we  intuitively  know  things  as  they 
are. 

VIII. 

Upward  of  two  hundred  works  have  been  published 
in  Germany,  besides  dozens  in  other  countries,  on  the 


THE  A-PRIORI  OR    KANTIAN    SCHOOL.  39 

philosophy  of  Kant,  who  has  been  almost  deified  for  one 
hundred  years  by  his  followers,  as  Aristotle  was  deified 
for  five  hundred  years  in  mediaeval  times.  Most  of  the 
works  are  liable  to  the  objections  which  I  have  taken  to 
Kant.  There  are  some,  however,  who  are  longing  for 
reality  in  philosophy,  and,  perceiving  that  Kant  has  not 
furnished  it,  have  endeavored  to  discover  it  by  a  course 
of  their  own.  But  they  have  been  so  bound  as  by  cords 
with  the  forms  of  Kant,  that  they  have  not  been  able  to 
break  forth  into  full  and  independent  liberty. 

In  seeking  to  avoid  the  extremes  to  which  Hegel  led 
his  admirers,  there  has  been  a  loud  cry  of  "  Back  to 
Kant !  "  I  believe  this  to  be  a  wiser  course  than  to  go 
on  with  Hegel  or  beyond  him.  Kant's  Kritik  is,  after 
all,  a  more  consistent  structure  than  that  of  any  of  his 
followers.  In  many  of  his  logical  analyses,  and  in  his 
ethical  principles,  he  has  expounded  truths  on  which  the 
mind  may  rest  in  the  assurance  that  it  will  never  be 
moved.  But  should  philosophy  be  brought  back  to  the 
position  of  Kant,  being  in  a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium, 
it  will  run  on  in  one  or  other  of  the  courses  which 
Kantism  has  hitherto  followed,  either  with  idealism  or 
agnosticism ;  or,  more  probably,  with  an  incongruous 
mixture  of  the  two  which  will  not  amalgamate. 

In  examining  the  New  Kantian  School  I  have  fallen  in 
with  a  work  by  Stahlen,  which  seems  to  me  to  state  and 
review  the  more  eminent  systems  of  that  school  fairly 
and  searchingly,  and  I  take  advantage  of  the  criticism 
urged.1 

There  is  Lange,  author  of  a  learned  and  elaborate 
work,  "  History  of  Materialism."  This  is  esteemed  by 
the  New  Kantians  as  the  most  philosophic  performance 

1  Kant,  Lotze,  and  Ritschel,  by  Leonhard  Stahlen,  translated 
by  D.  W.  Simon,  Ph.  D. 


40  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

of  the  present  day.  The  author  is  regarded  as  an  apostle 
of  the  Kantian  view  of  the  world,  and  the  leader  of  the 
new  movement.  Says  Stahlen:  "  It  is  decidedly  and  at 
once  significant  of  the  direction  which  Lange's  thought 
takes,  that  he  sets  aside  the  realistic  factor  which  Kant's 
theory  of  knowledge  endeavored  to  retain."  "  The  thing 
in  itself  is  simply  a  limitative  or  regulative  conception. 
We  do  not  know  whether  things  in  themselves  exist." 
44  His  own  presuppositions  leave  him  no  alternative  but 
to  teach  that  the  entire  phenomenal  world,  as  well  as  the 
organs  by  means  of  which  it  is  apprehended,  are  a  pro- 
duct of  our  representation." 

There  is  Lotze,  whose  instructions  have  been  attended 
by  so  many  English  and  Americans  as  well  as  Germans. 
He  has  a  kind  of  reality.  He  assumed  "  the  existence  of 
an  infinite  multiplicity  of  simple  beings  which  constitute 
the  basis  of  the  world  of  sense,  and,  after  Herbart's  ex- 
ample, designates  them  the  Reals.  In  Lotze's  view,  these 
same  Reals  are  of  the  nature  of  souls,  spirits,  because  of 
their  independent  existence."  Surely  all  this  is  a  specu- 
lative fancy,  which  explains  nothing,  and  of  the  existence 
of  which  we  have  no  proof  from  sense  or  consciousness. 
"  What,  then,  becomes  of  the  world  of  sense  ?  It  is  a 
mere  phenomenon  ;  and  not  even  objective  phenomenon, 
but  phenomenal  in  a  purely  subjective  sense."  Space 
and  Time  are  ideal.  "  But  if  space  is  a  mere  form  of 
subjective  intuition,  that  which  we  intuite  in  space  is  as 
exclusively  in  us  as  space  itself ;  outside  of  us  there  is 
nothing.  Time  also,  in  like  manner,  is  a  form  of  intui- 
tion ;  the  temporal-spatial  world  itself  is  phenomenal." 
He  proceeds  a  step  farther.  "  According  to  Lotze,  the 
being  of  things  is  a  standing  in  relations.  It  is  of  the 
very  idea  and  essence  of  that  which  exists  to  stand  in 
relations;  there  is  no  such  thing  as  existence  without 


THE  A-PRIORI   OR    KANTIAN   SCHOOL.  41 

relations ;  there  is  no  other  sort  of  actual  existence  but 
the  standing  in  relations." 

Stahlen  seems  to  be  justified  in  his  strong  statements. 
"The  corner-stone  of  the  Kritik  of  Reason  is,  we  do  not 
know  even  ourselves  as  we  are  in  ourselves,  but  merely 
as  we  appear  to  ourselves."  He  concludes :  "  The  edifice 
of  the  Kantian  philosophy  has  fallen  in  ruins  before  our 
eyes,  crushed  beneath  the  weight  of  its  own  contradic- 
tions ;  and  even  the  ruins  themselves  have  disappeared 
in  a  bottomless  pit.  In  so  far,  therefore,  the  result  of  the 
critical  system  is  null.  We  have  seen  that  it  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  the  system  of  truth ;  that,  on  the  contrary,  the 
consequences  are  utter  illusion  and  nihilism." 

While  Kant  had  a  strong  ideal  element,  he  had  an 
equally  strong  —  in  the  end  a  stronger  —  nescient  ele- 
ment. It  is  affirmed  that  the  mind  begins  with  phenom- 
ena in  the  sense  of  appearances,  and  can  never  know 
things  as  they  are,  either  without  or  within  us ;  in  fact, 
either  body  or  mind.  This  view,  as  we  shall  see  imme- 
diately, was  adopted  so  far  by  Hamilton,  and  from  him 
has  been  taken  up  by  a  powerful  speculator  who  has  the 
advantage  of  a  large  acquaintance  —  as  an  amateur  — 
with  physical  science,  who  argues  powerfully  that  things 
exist,  but  with  equal  power  that  we  can  never  know  their 
nature.  We  see  now  how  it  is  that  Agnosticism  is  so 
prevalent ;  is,  in  fact,  the  prevalent  heresy  of  our  day. 
Professor  Huxley,  President  of  the  Royal  Society  of 
London,  who  sits  in  the  chair  of  Newton  and  has  adopted 
the  scepticism  of  Hume,  and  Mr.  Spencer,  who  is  so  in- 
fluential a  thinker,  have  brought  us  to  this  blank  issue. 
Agnosticism  is  in  the  air,  and  our  young  men  are  obliged 
to  breathe  it  as  they  read  the  pages  of  many  of  our 
popular  journals.  Not  that  the  writers  or  readers  are 
able  to  follow  the  concatenated  reasoning  of  Kant, 


42  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REALITY. 

Hamilton,   and    Spencer;    but  they   catch   the  results, 
and  carry  them  out  to  their  practical  consequences. 

But  our  souls  cannot  live  in  this  void  any  more  than 
our  bodies  can  live  in  a  vacuum,  and  there  must  soon  be 
a  rush  out  of  this  confined,  this  dark  and  damp  malarial 
cellar,  into  the  free  and  open,  the  pure  and  healthy  air, 
where  we  can  live  and  breathe,  walk  and  run. 


SECTION  EIGHTH. 

THE  SCOTTISH  SCHOOL. 
I. 

THIS  school  has  not  so  much  influence  now  as  it  had 
at  the  end  of  the  last  century  and  the  beginning  of  this, 
when  it  was  the  only  philosophy  taught  in  Scotland,  and 
had  large  power  in  France  where  it  met  the  prevailing 
sensational  philosophy,  and  when  it  was  expounded  in 
most  of  the  colleges  of  the  United  States.  In  Scotland 
it  has  able  and  independent  supporters,  though  Kant 
and  Hegel  divide  the  dominion  with  it.  In  France  and 
the  United  States  it  has  a  traditional  influence  for  good, 
where  its  sound  and  safe  principles  are  taught  by  many 
professors,  who  are  unaware  of  the  source  from  which 
they  have  drawn  them. 

The  founder  of  the  school  was  Francis  Hutcheson, 
who,  in  general  philosophy,  held  with  Locke  that  all  that 
is  perceived  by  the  mind  are  ideas ;  but  Shaftesbury 
brought  in  a  number  of  other  senses  besides  the  sensa- 
tion and  reflection  of  Locke,  such  as  the  moral  sense  and 
the  sense  of  honor.  The  true  representative  of  the  school 
is  Thomas  Reid,  a  careful  observer,  a  sincere  lover  of 
truth,  an  independent  thinker,  carefully  avoiding  all  rash 
speculations.  He  had  two  great  ends  in  view  in  all  his 
writings.  The  one  was,  to  lay  down  principles  in  opposi- 
tion to  his  contemporary,  David  Hume,  who  was  under- 
mining all  natural  and  moral  truth ;  the  other  end  was, 


44  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

to  overthrow  and  set  aside  Locke's  theory  of  ideas,  which 
seemed  to  him  to  come  between  the  mind  and  things,  and 
thus  to  be  the  main  support  of  the  scepticism  of  Hume. 


II. 

To  accomplish  the  first  of  these  ends,  he  called  in 
Common  Sense.  The  phrase  and  the  doctrine  are  de- 
fended by  the  erudition  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton ;  but  they 
are  somewhat  ambiguous.  Besides  its  Aristotelian  mean- 
ing, where  it  denotes  the  percepts  common  to  all  the 
senses,  it  has  two  meanings  in  conversation  and  in  litera- 
ture: it  may  signify  good  sense  or  sound  judgment  in 
the  affairs  of  life  —  said  to  be  the  most  uncommon  of  all 
the  senses  —  or,  the  principles  of  thought  and  belief  com- 
mon to  all  men.  It  is  only  in  this  latter  sense  that  it 
can  be  used  in  philosophy.  Less  ambiguous  phrases  may 
be  employed  to  denote  this  last  quality,  say  "  fundamen- 
tal laws  of  thought  and  belief,"  employed  by  Reid's  dis- 
ciple, Dngald  Stewart.  Thus  expressed,  it  may  be  main- 
tained that  the  doctrine  of  Reid  and  his  school  met 
Hume  more  satisfactorily  than  Kant  did  with  his  greater 
logical  power. 

To  accomplish  his  second  point,  Reid  gives  what  he  re- 
gards as  the  true  account  of  sense-perception.  He  ar- 
gues most  conclusively  that  we  cannot  arrive  at  a  know- 
ledge of  the  external  world  by  reasoning.  He  unfolds 
what  he  regards  as  the  mental  process  in  sense-percep- 
tion. There  is  first  a  sensation  produced  by  the  external 
object ;  then  there  is  a  perception  suggested  instinctively 
by  the  sensation.  The  instinctive  suggestion  seems  to  me 
to  be  as  little  satisfactory  as  the  idea  of  Locke.  He  does 
not  give  the  mind,  with  Aristotle,  a  knowing  or  gnostic 
power.  It  is  thus  by  an  indirect  or  mediate  process  that 


THE   SCOTTISH  SCHOOL.  45 

we  reach  reality.     It  does  not  appear  that  the  mind  can 
directly  perceive  ;  that  is,  know  the  thing. 

He  further  holds  that  we  do  not  perceive  things,  but 
only  the  qualities  of  things,  which  imply  the  existence  of 
things.  This  doctrine  is  not  announced  so  openly  by 
Reid,  but  is  emphatically  declared  by  Dugald  Stewart. 
Neither  has  expressed  the  true  doctrine,  which  is,  that 
we  perceive  things,  the  very  things,  by  sense-perception. 
We  perceive  things  by  their  qualities. 


III. 

Sir  William  Hamilton  is  the  most  erudite  of  the  Scot- 
tish metaphysicians.  In  this  respect  he  is  worthy  of  be- 
ing put  alongside  of  the  great  German  scholars.  He 
gives  us  quotations,  with  critical  strictures,  from  obscure 
writers  of  various  ages  and  countries.  In  all  his  discus- 
sions he  uses  a  sharp,  two-edged  sword.  He  was  brought 
up  in  the  school  of  Reid,  and  boldly  defended  him  when 
the  younger  metaphysicians  were  beginning  to  assail  him 
because  of  his  caution.  In  his  lectures  on  Logic  and 
Metaphysics,  afterward  published,  he  travels  far  beyond 
the  narrow  field  cultivated  by  the  Scottish  School.  He 
has  made  very  valuable  contributions,  and  thrown  out 
very  definite  opinions  in  regard  to  all  the  mental  sci- 
ences, except,  perhaps,  Ethics,  which  he  does  not  seem  to 
have  specially  studied. 

IV. 

The  Scottish  School  generally,  especially  Dugald  Stew- 
art, give  a  high  place  to  moral  perceptions.  In  this  re- 
spect they  are  all  realists,  except  Thomas  Brown,  who 
makes  virtue  consist  in  mere  feelings.  None  of  them  al- 
lows that  the  mind  is  capable  of  rising  to  a  positive  idea 


46  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REALITY. 

of  infinity.  Hamilton  argues  powerfully,  with  British 
philosophers  generally,  that  our  idea  of  infinity  is  merely 
negative,  though  he  seems  to  allow  that,  while  we  have 
no  positive  idea  of  infinity,  we  have  a  faith  in  it,  —  as  if 
we  could  believe  in  a  thing  of  which  we  have  no  idea. 
Surely  there  must  be  some  way  of  showing  that,  as  we 
think  and  talk:  intelligently  abo'ut  infinity,  eternity,  om- 
niscience, we  must  have  some  positive  though  necessa- 
rily inadequate  idea  of  it.  I  maintain  that  we  have  an 
idea  of  something  that  is  beyond  our  widest  concept,  and 
is  such  that  nothing  can  be  added  to  it. 

We  have  here  to  do  simply  with  the  relation  of  Ham- 
ilton's philosophy  to  Realism.  He  professes  throughout 
to  be  a  realist.  Those  things  we  immediately  perceive 
are  the  real  things.  "  The  material  reality  is  the  object 
immediately  known  in  perception."  "The  very  things 
which  we  perceive  by  our  senses  do  really  exist."1  But 
he  studied  the  philosophy  of  Kant,  with  which  very  few 
Scotchmen  were  at  that  time  acquainted,  and,  perceiving 
the  common  points  of  agreement  between  the  Scotch  and 
German  schools,  he  sought  to  combine  them.  But  they 
will  not  coalesce.  Hamilton  reached  and  expounded  a 
doctrine  which  seems  to  me  to  conflict  with  the  realism 
of  Reid.  He  adopted  and  defended  with  great  logical 
ability  the  doctrine  of  Relativity.  "  Our  knowledge  is 
relative,  first,  because  existence  is  not  cognizable  abso- 
lutely and  in  itself,  but  only  in  special  modes ;  second, 
because  these  modes  thus  relative  to  our  faculties  are 
presented  to  and  known  by  the  mind,  only  under  modifi- 
cation, determined  by  these  faculties  themselves."  2  My 
readers  will  notice  that  here  we  have  thoroughly  Kan- 
tian principles,  which  cannot  be  grafted  on  the  realist 
stock.  In  the  three  general  propositions,  and  in  the  sev- 
1  Met.,  vol.  i.  pp.  279,  289.  2  Met.,  vol.  i.  p.  148. 


THE  SCOTTISH  SCHOOL.  47 

eral  clauses,  there  are  an  immense  number  and  variety 
of  assertions  wrapped  up.  Some  are  commonly  enter- 
tained, but  others  are  joined  on  to  them,  from  which  I 
strongly  dissent.  I  acknowledge,  first,  as  self-evident, 
that  things  are  known  only  as  we  have  the  capacity  to 
know  them ;  and  this  is  limited.  I  acknowledge,  sec- 
ondly, that  we  do  not  know  all  things ;  nay,  that  we  do 
not  know  all  about  any  one  thing.  In  other  words,  that 
our  knowledge  is  partial  or  finite,  as  distinguished  from 
perfect  or  absolute.  I  may  admit,  thirdly,  that  man  dis- 
covers internal  objects  only  under  a  relation  to  himself 
and  his  cognitive  powers.  So  much  I  allow.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  I  demur,  first,  to  the  Kantian  statement, 
that  we  do  not  know  existence  in  itself,  or,  as  he  ex- 
presses it  elsewhere,  that  we  do  not  know  the  thing  in 
itself  (Ding  an  Sich).  I  do  not  like  this  language  :  it  is 
ambiguous  ;  when  thoroughly  sifted  it  is  meaningless.  I 
doubt  much  whether  there  can  be  such  a  thing  as  "  exist- 
ence in  itself,"  and  of  course  what  does  not  exist  cannot 
be  known.  If  he  means  that  we  do  not  know  things  as 
existing,  I  deny  the  statement.  Everything  we  know  we 
know  as  existing ;  not  only  so,  but  we  know  the  thing 
itself ;  not  all  about  the  thing,  but  so  much  of  the  very 
thing.  Then  I  demur,  secondly,  to  the  statement  which 
is  thoroughly  Kantian,  that  the  mind  in  cognition  adds 
elements  of  its  own.  As  Hamilton  expresses  it:  "Sup- 
pose that  the  total  object  of  consciousness  =  12 ;  and 
that  the  external  reality  contributes  6,  the  material  sense 
3,  and  the  mind  3.  This  may  enable  you  to  form  some 
rude  conjecture  of  the  nature  of  the  object  of  percep- 
tion." l  To  suppose  that  in  perception  or  cognition  the 
mind  adds  anything,  is  a  doctrine  fraught  with  destruc- 
tive consequences ;  for,  if  it  adds  one  thing,  why  not  two 
1  Met.,  vol.  ii.  p.  129. 


48  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

things,  or  ten  things,  or  all  things,  till  we  are  left  in  ab- 
solute idealism,  which  means  absolute  nihilism  ? 

Hamilton  is  logical  enough  and  candid  enough  to  ad- 
mit the  issue.  Comparing  his  philosophy  with  that  of 
Germany,  he  says :  "  Extremes  meet.  In  one  respect 
both  coincide,  for  both  agree  that  the  knowledge  of  noth- 
ing is  the  principle  or  consummation  of  all  true  philoso- 
phy,—  Scire  nihil ;  studium  quo  nos  laetamer  utrique" 
But  the  one  doctrine,  openly  maintaining  that  nothing 
must  yield  everything,  is  a  philosophic  omniscience ; 
whereas  the  other,  holding  that  nothing  can  yield  noth- 
ing, is  a  philosophic  nescience.  In  other  words,  the  doc- 
trine of  the  unconditioned  is  a  philosophy  confessing 
relative  ignorance,  but  professing  absolute  knowledge; 
while  the  doctrine  of  the  conditioned  (Hamilton's  doc- 
trine) is  a  philosophy  professing  relative  knowledge,  but 
confessing  absolute  ignorance." 1  I  confess  I  always  feel 
chilled  when  I  read  this  passage. 

Hamilton's  learned  follower  in  Oxford,  Dr.  Mansel, 
in  his  famous  Bampton  Lectures,  used  his  principles  to 
undermine  Rationalism  in  religion  ;  but  in  so  doing  he 
undermined,  without  meaning  it,  religion  itself,  as  he 
did  not  leave  to  us  those  great  truths  of  Nature  which 
conduct  us  to  revealed  religion. 

Sir  James  Mackintosh  and  Dr.  Chalmers,  who  were 
trained  in  the  Scottish  school,  were  greatly  delighted 
when,  in  their  later  life,  they  discovered  the  close  resem- 
blance of  the  German  and  Scottish  philosophies.  The 
two  agree  in  standing  up  for  what  the  one  called  a-priori 
and  the  other  fundamental  principles.  But  while  they 
agree  they  also  differ.  The  main  difference  is,  that  in 
discovering  what  these  principles  are,  the  one  proceeds 
in  the  Critical  and  the  other  in  the  Inductive  method. 
1  Discussions,  p.  609. 


THE   SCOTTISH   SCHOOL.  49 

The  one  discards  observation ;  the  other  uses  it,  not  in- 
deed as  the  foundation  of  first  truths,  but  as  the  means  of 
discovering  them.  I  am  trying  to  give  the  proper  place 
to  the  induction  which  is  so  recommended  by  Reid,  Stew- 
art, and  Chalmers,  and  vhich  is  fitted  to  keep  philosophy 
from  the  extravagances  into  which  it  is  so  apt  to  fall, 
and  which  can  be  corrected  only  by  its  being  ever  com- 
pelled to  fall  back  on  facts  and  the  observation  of  facts. 
Just  as  logic  is  an  expression  of  the  -processes  of  the  mind 
in  discursive  thought,  so  is  metaphysics  the  expression  of 
what  passes  in  the  mind  in  discerning  primary  truth. 
The  exact  expression  is  reached  in  both  cases  in  a  careful 
observation  of  the  mind  in  the  respective  operations. 


SECTION  NINTH. 

THE   SENSATIONAL  SCHOOL. 

Sensationalism  had  already  appeared  in  the  philosophy 
of  Thomas  Hobbes,  who  derived  all  our  ideas  and  know- 
ledge from  sensation,  and  allowed  that  we  could  never 
reach  a  spiritual  reality  in  man  or  God.  But  what  is 
specially  called  the  sensational  school  originated  with 
Condillac,  who  left  out  the  Reflection  of  Locke,  took  no 
notice  of  his  power  of  Intuition,  and  represented  all  our 
ideas,  even  the  highest,  as  '*  transformed  sensations." 

In  Great  Britain  the  school  has  had  a  series  of  able 
men  holding  by  Sensationalism,  in  James  Mill,  John 
Stuart  Mill,  G.  H.  Lewes,  Alexander  Bain,  and  in  part 
Herbert  Spencer.  All  of  these  have  proceeded  more  or 
less  fully  on  the  negative  and  sceptical  principles  of 
David  Hume. 

We  may  take  JOHN  STUART  MILL  as  the  represen- 
tative British  sensationalist,  as  he  sees  more  clearly  than 
any  other  the  logical  consequences  of  the  system,  and 
is  candid  enough  to  admit  and  defend  them.  Body  is 
defined  by  him  as  the  "possibility  of  sensations,"  and 
mind  as  "a  series  of  feelings  aware  of  itself."  1  Almost 
every  intelligent  reader  has  felt  this  to  be  a  very  scanty 
remnant  of  the  knowledge  which  we  thought  we  had 
of  ourselves,  and  of  the  persons  and  objects  around  us. 

1  Exam,  of  Hamilton,  and  my  work,  Exam,  of  Mill. 


THE   SENSATIONAL   SCHOOL.  51 

Most  people  have  felt  it  to  be  a  reductio  ad  absurdum  of 
the  whole  system.  Naturally  we  think  that  we  have 
more  than  this  in  body  and  mind ;  that  we  perceive  body 
as  having  extension  and  a  power  of  resistance ;  that  we 
are  conscious  of  mind  as  having  intelligence  and  moral 
perception.  But  Mr.  Mill  is  a  clear  and  candid  reasoner, 
and  these  are  the  legitimate  results  of  the  sensational 
system.  You  can  get  something  higher,  say  personality 
and  intelligence  and  conscience  only  by  introducing  them 
from  without,  surreptitiously  to  clothe  the  nakedness  of 
the  system. 

GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  holds  the  doctrine  of  Rea- 
soned Realism.1  He  admits  that  "  the  ordinary  man 
believes  that  the  objects  he  sees,  touches,  and  tastes  do 
veritably  exist,  and  exist  as  they  are  seen,  touched, 
tasted."  This  doctrine  is  at  once  rejected.  His  system 
is  Realism,  "  because  it  affirms  the  reality  of  what  is 
given  in  feeling ;  and  Reasoned  Realism,  because  it  jus- 
tifies that  affirmation  through  the  ground  and  processes 
of  philosophy,  when  philosophy  explains  the  facts  given 
in  Feeling."  Observe  here  that  feeling  is  all  in  all. 
"  The  reality  of  an  external  existence,  Not-self,  is  a  fact 
of  Feeling ;  Knowledge  in  all  its  manifold  varieties  is  a 
classification  of  virtual  feelings."  His  general  conclu- 
sion is :  "  Mind  is  a  form  or  function  of  Life."  The 
Moral  Sense  consists  of  certain  organized  predispositions 
that  spontaneously  or  docilely  issue  in  the  beneficent 
forms  of  action,  which  the  experience  of  society  has 
classed  as  right."  Surely  this  is  a  very  meagre  account 
of  the  high  qualities  of  which  we  are  directly  conscious 
in  mind. 

ALEXANDER  BAIN  says:  "Mind  possesses  three  at- 
tributes or  capacities:  (1)  It  has  Feeling,  in  which  I 
1  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind,  pp.  263,  287. 


52  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   REALITY. 

include  what  is  conveniently  called  Sensation  and  Emo- 
tion. (2)  It  can  act  according  to  Feeling.  (3)  It  can 
think."  Consciousness  is  the  same  attribute  of  mind  as 
"Feeling  and  Emotion."  Thinking  consists  in  discov- 
ering Difference  and  Agreement,  and  in  Retentiveness ; 
and  it  proceeds  by  the  laws  of  Contiguity  and  Similarity. 
The  Moral  Faculty  is  resolved  into  "Prudence,  Sym- 
pathy, and  Emotions  generally."  In  this  list  of  man's 
powers  we  miss  those  which  raise  him  above  this  world 
and  ally  him  to  God.  In  regard  to  the  independent 
existence  of  body  his  language  is  ambiguous.  "  There 
is  no  possible  knowledge  of  the  world  except  in  reference 
to  our  minds.  Knowledge  means  a  state  of  mind."  The 
latter  clause  is  correct.  The  former  may  mean  that  we 
know  matter  simply  as  related  to  us,  whereas  we  know 
it  with  qualities  of  extension  and  force,  as  having  an  ex- 
istence independent  of  our  existence.  Mind  and  matter 
are  not  at  all  carefully  distinguished ;  they  are  repre- 
sented as  the  opposite  sides  of  the  same  thing,  as  if  the 
soul,  which  is  spiritual,  could  have  a  side  except  in  a 
metaphorical  sense.1 

In  France,  where  Sensationalism  so  prevailed  at  the 
end  of  last  century,  it  may  suffice  to  look  to  H.  TAJNE, 
the  present  representative  of  the  system.  He  makes  In- 
telligence to  consist  largely  of  names,  images,  and  ideas. 
He  reduces  ideas  to  a  class  of  images,  and  images  to  a 
class  of  sensations.  Names  are  a  class  of  images.  The 
laws  of  ideas  bring  back  the  laws  of  images.  Mind  is 
an  aggregate  {polypier)  of  images.  In  itself,  external 
perception  is  a  true  hallucination.  We  have  found  that 
the  objects  that  we  call  body  are  only  internal  phan- 
toms ;  that  is,  the  fragments  of  one  detached  from  them 

1  Mental  and  Moral  Science,  pp.  1,  8,  24,  250,  433  ;  Senses  and 
Intellect,  p.  250. 


THE   SENSATIONAL   SCHOOL.  53 

in  appearance  and  opposed  to  them,  while  in  reality  they 
themselves  are  the  self  under  another  aspect.  So  much 
for  body,  which  he  makes  so  illusory.  As  to  moral  per- 
sonality, that  which  makes  the  continuity  of  a  distinct 
person,  it  is  the  continued  renaissance  of  the  same  group 
of  distinct  images.1 

It  may  seem  as  if  sensationalism  is  a  very  inoffensive, 
as  it  is  a  very  simple,  creed.  But,  if  truly  believed  in, 
it  arrests  the  growth  of  all  higher  aims  and  aspirations, 
moral  and  spiritual. 

In  closing  this  survey  I  may  refer  to  TH.  RIBOT,  who 
has  given  us  many  valuable  facts  as  to  the  relation  of 
mind  and  body,  but  as  a  philosopher  is  a  sensationalist, 
undermining  in  his  journal  that  high  school  of  philoso- 
phers who  appeared  in  France  in  the  second  quarter  of 
this  century,  including  Cousin,  Saisset,  Simon,  and  others. 

In  this  criticism,  I  have  been  looking  at  the  men 
solely  in  regard  to  their  ability  to  find  actuality.  Locke 
was  personally  a  believer  in  things  without  us,  as  we 
naturally  apprehend  them ;  but  could  get  no  proof  of 
their  existence,  as  he  held  that  the  mind  can  perceive 
only  its  own  ideas.  Of  the  sensationalists  proper,  some 
have  no  other  reality  than  sensations  or  feelings  modi- 
fied and  transformed,  and  have  not  reached  and  cannot 
reach  things  without  or  within  us.  None  of  them  have 
a  belief  in  man's  personality  and  continued  identity  as 
evidenced  in  memory.  None  of  them  can  rise  to  truth 
beyond  experience,  to  truth  necessary  and  universal. 
None  of  them  acknowledge  that  we  perceive  immedi- 
ately moral  good,  or  that  we  can  stand  up  for  an  immu- 
table and  eternal  morality. 

Meanwhile  two  formidable  men  have  appeared  to 
carry  out  the  empirical  doctrine  to  its  logical  results. 

1  Taine,  De  ?  Intelligence. 


54  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

Professor  Huxley  expounds  and  defends  the  doctrine  of 
Hume  slightly  modified.  He  represents  the  mind  as 
having  Impressions,  which  he  divides  into  —  A,  sensa- 
tions ;  B,  pleasure  and  pain ;  (7,  relations  between  these. 
This  is  a  very  meagre  account  of  the  furniture  of  the 
mind. 


SECTION  TENTH. 

HUXLEY  AND  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

AT  this  place  Spencer  comes  in.  It  is  evident  that  he 
is  much  swayed  by,  and  started  from  the  position  of 
Hamilton  and  Mansel,  whose  philosophy  was  the  reign- 
ing one  in  Great  Britain  at  that  time.  Many  think,  and 
I  agree  with  them,  that  he  followed  out  their  doctrine  to 
its  logical  conclusion.  I  do  not  see  that  Hamilton's  prin- 
ciples can  stop  short  of  the  agnosticism  of  which  Spencer 
is  the  ablest  expounder.  I  pressed  Dr.  Mansel  to  meet 
this  downward  current,  but  he  never  did  so,  and  Hamil- 
ton's pupils  have  not  done  so.  He  is  the  most  powerful 
philosophic  speculator  of  our  day.  He  would  discuss 
every  subject  connected  with  the  operations  and  laws  of 
nature  and  answer  every  question.  I  have  sometimes 
thought  that  at  times  he  speculated  beyond  the  capacity 
of  the  human  intellect.  He  does  not  proceed  in  the  slow 
and  cautious  way  of  observation  recommended  by  Fran- 
cis Bacon ;  but  by  the  power  of  thought  rises  at  once  to 
the  highest  laws,  and  draws  from  them  a  long  line  of  con- 
sequences. 

I  would  not  charge  him  with  being  an  out  and  out 
defender  of  nescience  or  agnosticism.  In  certain  places 
he  argues  most  powerfully  for  the  existence  of  objects. 
But  then  these  objects  are  in  their  very  nature  unknown 
and  unknowable  to  us. 


56  THE   PHILOSOPHY    OF   REALITY. 

He  argues  resolutely  the  existence  of  God,  but  then 
God  is  unknown  and  unknowable  by  man.  He  identi- 
fies him  with  the  unknown  God  to  whom  the  Apostle 
Paul  saw  an  altar  dedicated.  Now,  both  the  human  head 
and  the  human  heart  require  a  God  so  far  known,  to 
whom  we  give  obedience  and  love.  In  his  Psychology 
he  speaks  in  the  same  way  of  the  human  mind.  He 
argues  its  existence,  but  he  denies  that  we  know  or  can 
know  it  as  a  faculty.  He  uses  the  very  strongest  lan- 
guage on  this  subject.  "  We  know  nothing  about  it  and 
never  can  know  anything  about  it.  Is  it  not  enough  to 
say  that  such  knowledge  is  beyond  the  path  of  human 
intelligence  as  it  now  exists,  for  no  amount  of  what  we 
call  intelligence,  however  transcendent,  can  grasp  such 
knowledge."  He  tells  us  that  "a  nervous  shock  is  the 
ultimate  unit  of  consciousness  ;  and  that  all  the  unlike- 
ness  among  our  feelings  result  from  unlike  modes  of  this 
ultimate  unit."  (Spencer's  Psych.)  I  confess  I  have 
an  extreme  aversion  to  this  phrase  " nervous  shock" 
as  used  by  Spencer  and  Bain  to  express  mental  action. 
Apparently  he  can  get  no  farther  than  Hume  the  sceptic, 
who  made  mind  consist  of  impressions  and  ideas.  He 
declares  formally  and  emphatically,  "  Mind  being  com- 
posed of  Feelings  and  the  relations  between  Feelings 
and  the  aptitudes  of  Feelings  for  entering  into  Relations 
varying  with  their  kinds."  (Psych.)  What !  What,  is 
this  all  he  can  make  of  man's  intellectual  talents,  of  his 
philosophic  talent,  of  his  mathematical,  of  his  artistic,  of 
his  mechanical  talents,  of  his  sagacity  on  the  practical 
affairs  of  life.  Surely  these  are  as  prominent  as  our 
feelings  and  have  as  much  right  to  be  included  in  our 
mental  powers. 


SECTION  ELEVENTH. 

REALISM  AND   RELIGION. 

THE  Realistic  view,  as  the  true  one,  is  the  one  most 
favorable  to  religion,  which  proceeds  on  facts  and  not  on 
phenomena  in  the  sense  of  appearances.  Thus,  when  it 
says  :  Rorn.  i.  20  :  "  For  the  invisible  things  of  God  from 
the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being  under- 
stood by  the  things  that  are  made,  even  his  eternal  power 
and  godhead,"  where  both  "  the  invisible  things  of  God  " 
and  "the  things  that  are  made  "  are  facts  and  not  mere 
phenomena.  The  same  may  be  said  of  such  passages  as 
these :  "  Rejoice  with  them  that  do  rejoice  and  weep  with 
them  that  weep."  All  such  passages  refer  to  facts  and 
not  to  vague  appearances,  and  carry  with  them  our  con- 
victions and  our  confidence. 

In  Germany  they  follow  Kant  and  regard  what  we 
discern  and  what  is  revealed  to  us  in  Scripture  as  phe- 
nomena, that  is,  as  appearances.  The  view  which  they 
take  is  in  consequence  pliable  and  insecure,  first  in  their 
philosophy  and  then  in  their  theology  as  swayed  by  their 
philosophy.  These  views  fermenting  in  Germany  come 
over  into  Great  Britain  and  America  and  trouble  our 
theology  and  our  students. 


SECTION  TWELFTH. 

THE  RESULTS  BEACHED. 
I. 

AT  the  close  we  may  take  a  look  backward  at  the 
ground  over  which  we  have  traveled. 

EXPERIENTIAL  PHILOSOPHY  cannot  give  us  universal 
or  necessary  truth,  or  any  truth  beyond  the  narrow  limits 
of  observation.  It  is  doubtful  whether  it  can  furnish  a 
valid  argument  for  the  existence  of  God.  In  the  system 
of  Locke  we  are  supposed  to  perceive  only  ideas,  and  are 
precluded  from  the  knowledge  of  things. 

SENSATIONALISM  gives  us  sensations  and  feelings  va- 
riously compounded,  and  we  cannot  from  these  derive 
mind  or  even  body  as  substances,  but  only,  as  Mill  con- 
cludes, "possibilities  of  sensation"  and  "  a  series  of  feel- 
ings aware  of  itself." 

THE  A-PRIORI  SCHOOL  OF  KANT  makes  our  first  per- 
ceptions to  be  of  phenomena  (appearances)  and  not  of 
things.  Then  all  that  we  know  has  Forms  imposed  upon 
it  by  the  subjective  mind,  so  that,  while  we  must  believe 
in  the  existence  of  things,  we  do  not  know  what  they  are. 
We  pronounce  judgments  upon  them,  but  according  to 
the  restrictive  laws  of  subjective  Categories.  The  result 
is,  that,  when  we  would  argue  the  existence  of  substance, 
cause,  and  other  connections,  and  of  God,  we  find  our- 
selves in  a  world  of  Illusions.  A  vigorous  attempt  is 
made  to  save  us  from  nescience  by  calling  in  Moral  Rea- 


THE  RESULTS  REACHED.  59 

son,  which  gives  us  a  high  idea  of  duty,  of  a  judgment 
day,  and  of  God,  which  are  all  real ;  but  it  is  doubtful 
whether  the  system  can  legitimately  give  us  a  known 
world  of  things  to  which  to  apply  them.  It  is  evident 
that  an  ideal  world  can  give  us  only  an  ideal  or  pan- 
theistic God. 

THE  SCOTTISH  SCHOOL  proposes  to  be,  means  to  be, 
and  professes  to  be  realist ;  but  in  the  pages  of  Reid  and 
Stewart  it  speaks  doubtfully  about  our  perceiving  things, 
and  in  the  pages  of  Hamilton  it  gives  us  only  relative 
knowledge,  which  is  not  a  knowledge  of  things  as  they 
are,  and  ends  avowedly  in  nescience. 


II. 

I  have  shown  that  Hamilton  was  led  into  agnosti- 
cism by  the  critical  philosophy  of  Kant ;  and  Mansel 
applied  this  doctrine  to  overthrow  rationalism.  It  was 
when  Hamilton  and  Mansel  were  in  the  ascendant  that 
Herbert  Spencer  began  to  think  and  write  on  these 
subjects,  and  drove  the  prevailing  doctrine  to  agnosti- 
cism. He  argues  powerfully  that  we  are  constrained  to 
believe  that  things  exist ;  but  he  maintains  as  resolutely 
that  we  do  not  and  cannot  know  the  nature  of  things. 
It  can  be  shown,  as  I  have  done  in  various  parts  of  my 
works,  that  we  cannot  know  that  things  exist  except  we 
know  so  much  of  their  nature.1  Without  this,  any  pre- 
dication of  their  nature  would  be  meaningless  ;  it  would 
be  a  predication  about  something  unknown,  and  we  could 
have  no  apprehension  of  what  the  predication  referred  to. 
This  is  the  position  to  which  Kant  and  Hamilton  have 
brought  us,  and  it  is  now  occupied  by  Mr.  Spencer :  that 
things  exist,  but  that  we  do  not  and  cannot  know  their 
1  See  Appendix  C. 


60  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

nature.  Spencer  shows  that,  while  we  have  sensations, 
which  are  simply  affections  of  the  nerves,  and  can  pro- 
nounce judgments  upon  them,  we  have,  and  can  have, 
no  insight  into  what  they  are. 


III. 

If  there  be  any  truth,  even  partial  truth,  in  this  repre- 
sentation, philosophy  has  come  to  a  crisis,  such  as  it  did 
when  Berkeley  drove  the  partial  idealism  of  Descartes 
and  Locke  to  pure  idealism,  and  Hume  drove  the  whole 
school  to  nihilism.  Speculations  have  thus  been  shown 
to  be  false  by  the  consequences  to  which  they  lead.  The 
vessel  has  foundered  because  it  has  not  followed  the 
right  track.  The  train  has  been  wrecked  by  the  burst- 
ing of  the  materials  which  it  carries.  As  philosophy  has 
inflicted  the  wound,  it  must  hasten  to  heal  it.  It  must 
begin  to  build  anew  (for  the  human  head,  not  to  speak 
of  the  human  heart,  will  not  be  satisfied  with  an  agnostic 
philosophy)  ;  and  it  will  have  this  advantage,  that  the 
ground  has  been  so  far  cleared  of  incumbrances.  I  trust 
it  will  rise  as  a  phoenix  from  its  ashes,  profiting  by  the 
blunders  it  has  made,  and  purified  by  the  fires  through 
which  it  has  passed. 

Realism  is  the  one  thing  to  be  introduced  into  modern 
philosophy  (it  will  be  shown  that  it  had  a  place,  though 
not  always  the  right  place,  in  the  ancient  Greek  phi- 
losophy) to  give  it  coherence  and  consistency.  Philoso- 
phy, whatever  else  it  may  do,  aims  at  settling  foundations. 
But  reality  is  the  firmest  of  all  foundations.  A  chink  has 
appeared  in  the  wall,  indicating  that  there  is  some  in- 
security at  the  base.  There  are  crevices  staring  us  in 
the  face,  and  they  have  to  be  filled  up.  We  may  find 
.that  these  evils  can  be  remedied  by  giving  reality  its 


THE  RESULTS  REACHED.  61 

proper  place  in  the  rock  on  which  the  building  stands, 
and  in  the  cement  which  binds  the  parts  together.  In 
this  process  some  abutments  which  are  incumbrances 
will  require  to  be  taken  down ;  but  the  edifice  will  rest 
more  firmly  upon  its  well-laid  foundation. 

We  see  how  it  is  that  Agnosticism  is  so  prevalent  in 
the  present  day.  Young  men,  pondering  a  deep  subject 
in  religion,  in  morals,  or  science,  with  which  they  are 
troubled,  find  that  philosophy,  with  all  its  professions 
and  pretensions,  gives  them  little  to  rest  on  in  the  last 
resort ;  and  they  conclude  that  nothing  can  be  known  as 
it  is.  Those  who  would  confute  this  Agnosticism  ex- 
perience great  difficulty  in  doing  so.  The  reason  is,  that 
they  have  no  ground,  no  TTOV  orw,  on  which  to  stand. 
They  commonly  satisfy  themselves  with  proving,  which 
they  can  do  easily  and  successfully,  that  nescience  is  sui- 
cidal. It  is  an  evident  contradiction  to  affirm  that  we 
know  that  we  can  know  nothing.  But  they  do  not  see 
that  in  establishing  this  point  they  are  only  playing  into 
the  hands  of  the  agnostics.  For  by  far  the  most  pow- 
erful argument  of  Hume  and  the  sceptics  is,  that  there 
are  contradictions,  antinomies  (as  they  call  them),  in  our 
nature,  and  so  conclude  that  human  reason  cannot  be 
trusted.  They  set  two  strong  contradictory  propositions 
before  us  that  counteract  and  arrest  each  other,  and  leave 
nothing  between.  Many  an  ambitious  youth  is  laboring 
to  pull  down  Mr.  Spencer's  imposing  structure  only  to 
find  it  falling  on  himself.  He  propounds  an  argument 
which  seems  profound ;  but,  on  searching  it,  it  is  seen  to 
assume  the  reality  which  he  proposed  to  prove.  The 
only  successful  method  of  meeting  Agnosticism  is  to 
assume  reality ;  not  trying  to  prove  it,  but  taking  it  for 
granted,  as  we  do  the  axioms  of  geometry  as  an  intuitive 
truth,  which  can  stand  the  tests  of  intuition. 


62  THE   PHILOSOPHY  OF  REALITY. 

IV. 

It  is  acknowledged  on  all  hands  that  we  cannot  prove 
every  truth  by  syllogism,  or  by  any  mediate  or  external 
evidence.  We  can  prove  only  by  premises  given  and 
allowed.  But,  if  we  are  to  prove  every  truth,  we  have 
also  to  prove  the  premises,  which  have  to  be  proven  by 
prior  premises ;  and  thus  we  need  an  endless  chain  of 
premises  hanging  on  each  other,  and  the  whole  hanging 
on  nothing.  There  are  truths  which  do  not  require  to 
be  proven ;  they  have  their  evidence  in  themselves,  and 
we  have  an  intuitive  power  of  discerning  it.  Of  this 
character  are  the  axioms  of  geometry.  No  one  should 
attempt  to  prove  them  ;  if  any  one  does,  he  will  find  that 
the  evidence  he  employs  is  not  so  clear  and  certain  as  the 
axiom  itself  is.  We  assume  the  axiom  without  seeking 
proof,  and  in  doing  so  we  are  not  acting  unreasonably  ; 
we  are  assuming  what  we  know  by  a  higher  reason  than 
mediate  reasoning.  Spontaneously  we  are  sure  that  we 
have  reality  in  what  is  presented  to  us  by  the  senses 
and  by  self-consciousness.  I  believe  that  this  is  the  first 
truth  which  the  infant  mind  knows  as  it  wakes  into 
existence.  Being  so,  philosophy  should  take  it  up  and 
start  with  it ;  it  should  not  attempt  to  demonstrate  it. 
If  any  one  is  not  satisfied  with  this  statement  let  him 
try  to  prove  his  own  existence.  What  external  proof 
can  he  bring?  Perhaps  he  may  answer,  Some  one,  my 
father,  told  me  so.  But  does  he  not  see  that,  in  order  to 
reach  the  existence  of  the  father,  he  has  to  assume  his 
own  existence  ? 

V. 

I  am  insisting  that  to  every  philosophy  the  question 
be  put,  What  do  you  make  of  reality  ?  If  you  omit  it,  I 


THE   RESULTS  REACHED.  63 

demand  that  you  give  it  a  place ;  otherwise  your  system 
is  a  mere  speculation.  If  you  give  it  a  place,  I  ask,  At 
what  place?  —  at  the  entrance?  in  the  middle?  or  at  the 
close  ?  In  this  inquiry  it  will  turn  out  that  reality  can- 
not be  proven  except  by  premises  that  contain  reality, 
and  that  it  is  to  be  assumed  in  philosophy,  even  as  it  is 
taken  for  granted  and  acted  upon  in  our  native  per- 
ceptions. 

I  am  aware  that  in  pursuing  this  course  perplexities 
and  difficulties  will  arise,  as  they  do  in  all  branches  of 
investigation,  physical  and  metaphysical ;  but  there  will 
be  far  greater  difficulties  in  following  any  other  course ; 
for  the  reality  which  we  have  unnaturally  shut  out  will 
ever  be  coming  back  to  assert  its  existence,  authority, 
and  claims,  and  to  disturb  and  confound  the  errors  which 
have  taken  its  place.  It  will  turn  out  that,  whatever 
mysteries  may  cast  up  in  carrying  out  this  assumption, 
there  will  be  no  positive  contradictions ;  and  the  reality 
will  hold  its  place  when  the  spectres  and  illusions  have 
been  obliged  to  vanish  in  the  light  of  actuality. 

Of  all  things,  it  is  most  essential  that  we  should  know 
what  is  the  precise  reality  which  we  intuitively  know. 
This  must  be  carefully  separated,  by  the  "  necessary  re- 
jections and  exclusions,"  from  all  adventitious  circum- 
stances, such  as  sensations  and  feelings. 

We  look  through  a  perfectly  transparent  glass  on  a 
tree  before  us.  What  is  it  that  we  see?  It  is  not  the 
glass,  but  the  tree ;  so  when  we  take  away  the  glass  it 
is  not  the  eye  but  the  tree  that  we  perceive.  A  like 
remark  may  be  made  of  all  the  senses.  Let  us  try  to 
ascertain  the  precise  object  perceived  by  each  of  the 
windows  of  the  soul. 

In  Sight  what  I  perceive  is  not  the  retina  and  brain 
affection,  but  a  colored  surface.  In  the  Muscular  Sense 


64  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

I  do  not  observe  the  nerve  which  moves  the  muscle  in 
locomotive  action,  nor  the  nerve  which  carries  up  the 
notice  of  the  motion  to  the  brain ;  I  perceive  merely 
the  muscle  resisted  by  an  object. 

In  Touch  Proper,  or  Feeling,  we  do  not  discern  the 
nerve,  but  merely  the  sensitive  feeling  which  we  localize 
at  the  point  which  the  nerve  reaches. 

In  Hearing  I  am  conscious,  not  of  the  tympanum,  the 
hammer  and  stirrup,  and  other  apparatus,  but  simply  of 
a  sound  in  the  ear. 

In  Taste  we  know  our  palate  as  affected.  In  Smell  we 
know  our  nostrils  as  affected. 

By  the  last  four  of  these  we  know  directly  only  what 
are  called  Secondary  Qualities  of  body ;  that  is,  special 
affections  of  body  for  which  we  are  prompted  to  seek  a 
cause  beyond  our  organic  frame,  as  it  is  not  in  our  frame, 
and  are  commonly  able  to  find  it.  By  a  combination 
of  the  perceptions  of  the  primary  and  secondary  qualities 
thus  reached,  we  are  able  to  form  a  knowledge  of  body, 
say  of  an  orange :  by  sight,  as  extended,  or  in  space  and 
as  colored ;  by  the  muscular  sense,  as  having  resisting 
force ;  by  hearing,  as  capable  of  issuing  sound ;  by  touch, 
taste,  and  smell,  as  capable  of  rousing  sensations  of  spe- 
cial sorts. 

VII. 

Having  now  an  internal  and  external  world,  all  of 
realities,  we  can  add  to  them  indefinitely  by  reasoning, 
and  by  the  continued  observations  of  sense  and  conscious- 
ness. Thus  we  can  know  not  only  the  shape  of  this 
triangle,  but  by  necessary  inference  that  its  angles  are 
equal  to  two  right  angles.  We  have  the  moral  law: 
"  Do  unto  others  as  ye  would  that  they  should  do  unto 
you ; "  but  further,  as  a  consequence  that  we  should  show 


THE  RESULTS   REACHED.  65 

kindness  to  this  poor  man,  this  negro,  this  enemy  of  ours, 
this  slave,  this  criminal,  and  this  infidel.  We  have  the 
facts  brought  back  by  memory,  the  records  of  history, 
the  discoveries  of  science.  By  these  processes,  conducted 
by  ourselves  and  others  whom  we  trust,  we  can  increase 
our  knowledge  wide  as  the  knowable  world,  and  all  be 
of  realities. 

But  it  is  asked  in  a  disdainful  manner,  Do  you  pre- 
sumptuously propose  to  set  aside  all  previous  philoso- 
phies :  that  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  of  Descartes  and 
Locke,  of  Kant  and  Reid  ?  I  answer  at  once  and  deci- 
sively, I  reject  none  of  the  great  truths  which  have  been 
established  by  the  great  thinkers  of  the  world,  greatly  to 
the  benefit  of  the  world.  I  mean  simply  to  settle  some 
of  them  upon  a  surer  foundation.  Some  of  them  seem  to 
me  to  be  resting  on  perishable  piles,  like  the  houses  in 
Venice  ;  I  would  found  them  on  the  rock  of  reality.  In 
some  of  them  there  are  visible  cracks  and  excrescences, 
sceptical  and  ideal ;  I  would  fill  them  up  by  bringing  in 
the  reality,  which  they  have  overlooked  because  it  is  so 
near,  and  put  it  in  the  room  of  the  incumbrances.  We 
may  thus  retain,  and  in  a  secure  position,  all  that  is  true 
and  good  in  the  systems  of  ancient  Greece  and  modern 
Europe. 

VIII. 

I  acknowledge  and  claim,  if  the  philosophy  of  reality  is 
assumed,  amendments  will  require  to  be  made  on  certain 
of  the  prevailing  philosophies,  in  the  way  both  of  addi- 
tion and  subtraction.  Empiricists  will  have  to  take  in 
much  that  they  have  overlooked  and  omitted.  Along 
with  their  sensations  and  feelings,  imnges  and  symbols, 
they  will  have  to  accept  and  embrace  higher  truths,  such 
as  self  -  personality,  substance,  moral  obligation,  which 


66  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

are  all  realities  revealed  by  consciousness.  We  have  as 
strong  and  quite  as  convincing  proof  of  the  latter  of 
these  principles  as  we  have  of  the  former.  The  Scottish 
School  must  be  made  to  throw  away  its  crutches  of  im- 
pressions, instincts,  suggestions,  and  common  sense,  and 
give  the  mind  a  power  of  seeing  things  directly.  The 
a-priori  philosophy  must  be  made  to  begin  with  things 
material  and  mental,  instead  of  subjective  laws.  It  must 
be  led  to  regard  space  and  time  as  realities  quite  as  much 
as  the  objects  we  perceive  in  them.  The  Categories  of 
the  understanding  must  take  the  shape  of,  and  be  repre- 
sented as,  laws  of  the  mind ;  such  as  cause  and  effect, 
which  we  perceive  to  be  in  the  very  nature  of  things  act- 
ing. The  higher  ideas,  such  as  substance,  the  connection 
of  things  and  Deity,  must  be  so  apprehended  and  stated 
as  to  show  that  they  are  realities  which  we  can  know  and 
believe  in,  and  feel  them  to  be  the  most  steadfast  and 
exalting  truths  which  the  mind  can  dwell  on. 

But  it  will  be  objected  that  in  this  realistic  philosophy 
we  seem  to  have  no  room  left  for  idealism.  I  answer, 
that  I  leave  to  it  its  own  province,  which  is  one  of  the 
richest  and  most  fertile  which  God  has  allotted  to  man ; 
it  is  the  region  of  imagination,  with  fancy  and  feeling  to 
endear  them  to  us.  But  we  must  keep  idealism  in  its 
own  province.  We  do  not  allow  it  a  place  in  science, 
say  in  astronomy  or  chemistry,  in  social  or  political  sci- 
ence. We  do  not  permit  it  to  attempt  to  improve  or 
beautify  the  laws  of  gravitation,  of  animal  and  plant  life, 
of  the  economic  law  of  supply  and  demand.  We  insist 
on  all  these  keeping  rigidly  to  facts.  We  then  allow  ideal- 
ism to  come  in  and  embellish  them  as  it  can.  And  the 
wider  the  sciences  of  fact  extend  their  discoveries,  the 
more  extensive  is  the  field  opened  to  the  play  of  the  im- 
agination. Now,  there  should  be  like  restrictions  and 


THE  RESULTS  REACHED.  67 

extensions  in  metaphysics  as  physics.  We  must  settle 
what  are  first  and  fundamental  truths  by  scientific  inves- 
tigation ;  and  then,  above  this  solid  ground,  we  may  al- 
low a  covering  to  be  spread,  rich  as  the  clouds  of  the 

evening  sky. 


IX. 

Agnosticism  appears  in  a  variety  of  forms.  In  partic- 
ular, it  takes  a  vulgar  and  a  philosophic  form.  In  the 
former,  it  is  obliged  to  admit  the  sensible,  but  turns  away 
from  all  the  higher  truths  of  God  and  immortality ;  of 
these,  it  is  said,  we  can  know  nothing.  It  is  obliged,  in 
spite  of  itself,  practically  to  acknowledge  reality  in  the 
common  affairs  of  life  —  at  least  in  regard  to  meat  and 
money ;  but  would  leave  all  spiritual  truth  in  the  regions 
of  doubt  and  darkness.  In  this  shape  it  is  an  impression 
and  a  vague  credulity,  rather  than  a  fixed  conviction  and 
faith ;  and  in  arguing  with  it  we  feel  as  if  we  were  fight- 
ing with  a  ghost.  It  is  only  when  attacked  that  it  takes 
the  form  of  a  fixed  creed.  Thus  put  it  claims  to  a  phi- 
losophy ;  and  puts  itself  in  the  form  of  a  general  doc- 
trine. It  is  of  vast  moment  in  these  circumstances  to 
have  a  decision  in  the  final  court  of  appeal,  and  to  show 
that  agnosticism  is  utterly  untenable,  being  contrary  to 
our  fundamental  cognitions.  This  is  what  I  have  en- 
deavored to  do  in  this  treatise,  leaving  the  vulgar  agnos- 
ticism without  a  foundation. 


X. 

In  closing  this  paper,  I  may  remark  that  our  sponta- 
neous belief  that  we  are  in  the  midst  of  reality,  gives  us 
a  feeling  of  assurance  and  stability  in  all  the  affairs,  in- 


68  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF  REALITY. 

eluding  the  practical  affairs,  of  life.  It  goes  with  us, 
and  should  be  encouraged  to  go  with  us,  wherever  we  go. 
It  is  the  business  of  philosophy  not  to  undermine  and 
restrain  it,  but  to  explain  and  defend  it. 

Physicists,  in  their  deeper  researches,  are  ever  coming 
to  mysteries  which  they  are  apt  to  designate  as  metaphys- 
ics. What  should  they  do  in  these  circumstances  ?  When 
there  is  a  reasonable  hope  of  going  farther,  they  should 
just  continue  their  researches  on  the  method  prescribed 
by  the  logic  of  science.  But  when  they  have  come  to  a 
truly  metaphysical  truth,  —  when  they  have  come  to  a 
first  truth,  to  what  is  self-evident  and  necessary,  to  what 
shines  in  its  own  light,  and  rests  on  its  own  foundation, 
—  then  they  should  feel  that  they  have  come  to  the  rock, 
and  should  rest  and  be  satisfied.  This  they  should  al- 
ways do  when  they  come  to  what  is  self-evidently  real. 
It  should  be  one  main  end  of  metaphysical  philosophy  to 
furnish  to  them  the  tests  of  such  truths,  with  an  arrange- 
ment and  classified  list  of  them.  This  I  have  endeavored 
to  do  in  my  work  on  "  First  and  Fundamental  Truth." 
What  is  found  deficient  in  that  work  will  doubtless  be 
supplied  by  others. 

It  is  only  on  the  supposition  of  things  within  and  with- 
out us  being  real,  that  we  have  logical  proof  of  the  exist- 
ence of  God.  "  The  invisible  things  of  God  are  clearly 
seen,  being  understood  from  the  things  that  are  made, 
even  his  eternal  power  and  Godhead."  It  is  from  the 
things  that  are  made  we  get  a  legitimate  argument  for 
what  we  do  not  see,  the  existence  of  the  Maker.  As 
long  as  we  look  on  what  we  perceive  as  mere  phenom- 
ena, sensations,  or  subjective  ideas,  the  God  we  reach 
must  be  of  a  like  character,  ideal  or  pantheistic. 

Every  student  of  the  history  of  religion  knows  that 
philosophy  and  theology  are  apt  to  affect  each  other.  A 


THE  RESULTS   REACHED.  69 

high  theology  has  often  elevated  philosophy  by  bringing 
in  its  high  ideas,  so  allied  to  religion  and  to  God.  A 
pretentious  philosophy,  passing  beyond  its  proper  sphere, 
has  often  corrupted  religion.  Even  the  grand  systems  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle  have  been  made  to  corrupt  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  faith,  as  we  may  see  in  Origen,  in  the  an- 
cient Church,  and  in  the  scholastic  writers  of  mediaeval 
times,  and  in  the  pantheistic  systems.  The  holy  doc- 
trines of  the  Church  in  Germany  have  had  more  influence 
than  any  other  external  power  in  constraining  philoso. 
phy  to  look  to  the  highest  attributes  of  man,  his  freedom, 
his  personality,  and  his  immortality.  A  meagre  theology, 
overlooking  the  higher  perfections  of  God,  has  favored 
an  empirical  philosophy.  The  sensational  philosophy  has 
produced  a  theology  which  takes  no  account  of  the  holi- 
ness of  God.  The  rationalism  of  England,  in  the  end  of 
last  century  and  the  beginning  of  this,  allied  itself  with 
the  theory  which  accounted  for  all  our  ideas  by  associa- 
tion, and  with  utilitarianism.  The  ideal  philosophy  gives 
us  an  ideal  theology,  which  tends  toward  pantheism,  and 
has  produced  those  plausible  theories  which  have  come 
over  to  us  from  Germany. 

We  claim  to  be  formed  in  the  image  of  God,  and  a  re- 
alistic philosophy,  teaching  us  to  look  to  the  various  pow- 
ers of  man,  should  raise  our  faith  to  the  contemplation  of 
a  full-orbed  Deity :  our  understanding  leading  us  to  look 
on  him  as  omniscient,  our  moral  nature  to  regard  him  as 
holy  and  just,  and  our  feelings  to  cleave  to  him  as  benev- 
olent. The  full  truth  revealed  by  theology  and  philoso- 
phy is :  God  is  a  Spirit ;  God  is  Light ;  God  is  Love. 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX  A. 

ARISTOTLE    ON    THE    COGNITIVE    POWER   OF  THE    MIND. 

EVER  since  Descartes,  the  Father  of  Modern  Philosophy, 
drew  so  decidedly  the  distinction  between  mind  and  body,  there 
has  been  a  change  of  view  among  metaphysicians  generally  as  to 
what  the  mind  starts  with  in  its  intelligent  acts,  and  as  to  the 
nature  of  sense-perception.  Descartes,  who  was  so  resolute  a 
defender  of  spiritualism,  maintained  that  mind  cannot  act  di- 
rectly on  body,  nor  body  upon  mind.  To  explain  their  evident 
intercourse,  Malebranche,  following  Descartes,  taught  the  doc- 
trine of  Occasional  Causes ;  Locke  called  in  Ideas ;  and  Leibnitz 
advocated  Preestablished  Harmony,  to  show  how  mind  could 
know  body.  None  of  these  theories  could  accomplish  the  end 
they  were  meant  to  serve ;  could  in  any  way  explicate  the  na- 
ture of  perception  by  the  senses.  The  Idea,  as  has  been  shown 
by  Reid  and  Hamilton,  only  brought  in  new  difficulties,  only 
introduced  officious  intermeddlers.  It  may  be  profitable  in  these 
circumstances  to  turn  to  the  views  of  Aristotle.  These  were 
commonly  adopted  by  the  schoolmen  throughout  the  thousand 
years  of  mediaeval  times. 

It  is  evident  that  he  gives  a  higher,  or  rather  a  deeper,  place 
to  native  cognition  than  is  now  done.  In  treating  of  the  intel- 
lectual powers,  the  moderns  speak  of  the  Senses  and  of  the  dis- 
cursive faculties  of  Judgment  and  of  Reasoning,  which  is  made 
up  of  correlated  judgments.  But  they  neglect  to  announce  that 


APPENDIX.  71 

the  senses,  external  and  internal,  give  knowledge  of  realities ; 
and  judgments  imply  real  or  imaginary  objects,  on  which  they 
are  pronounced.  Our  judgments  are  always  predications  about 
something  apprehended.  They  are  the  declaration  of  a  relation 
between  two  or  more  things  which,  in  the  order  of  things  and  of 
time,  must  be  prior  to  the  judgments  upon  them.  To  judge  or 
reason,  we  must  have  objects  about  which  to  judge  or  reason. 
The  unit  of  thought  is  not,  as  Hamilton  and  most  modern  met- 
aphysicians maintain,  judgment,  but  cognition  by  sense-percep- 
tion and  self-consciousness.  What  we  start  with  in  intelligence 
is  knowledge,  and  thus  and  then  the  judgment  has  materials  on 
which  to  act,  and  may  rise  to  higher  cognitions  of  realities  by 
observing  further  relations  between  things,  and  drawing  conclu- 
sions. 

The  judgments  may  be  about  objects,  imaginary  as  well  as 
real.  But  imaginations  are  formed  of  things  which  we  have  ex- 
perienced, put  in  new  forms  and  dispositions.  Our  judgments 
about  them  do  not  make  them  real,  but  they  imply  a  reality, 
from  which  the  imaginations  have  been  drawn.  Our  idea  of 
a  mermaid  is  derived  from  the  woman  and  the  fish.  Our  sys- 
tems of  Psychology  will  ever  be  perplexed  and  confused  till  they 
give  knowledge  of  concrete  things  a  primary  place  in  the  opera- 
tions of  the  mind,  and  make  judgment  depend  upon  it. 

Aristotle's  Divisions  of  the  Powers  of  the  Soul.  —  I  do  not 
claim  that  the  Stagyrite  has  stated  all  that  I  have  now  laid 
down,  but  he  has  given  a  higher  or  rather  a  deeper  place  to  cog- 
nition than  the  moderns. 

His  penetration  allured  him  to  draw  innumerable  distinctions 
among  the  powers  of  the  soul.  It  might  be  argued,  I  think, 
that  all  these  proceed  on  real  differences.  But  I  have  not  been 
able  to  discover  that  he  sums  them  up  in  a  comprehensive  unity. 
He  does  not  profess  to  give  an  exhaustive  and  logical  classifica- 
tion of  the  mental  powers.  The  parts  are  not  exclusive  and 
independent. 

Perhaps  his  most  fundamental  division  of  the  faculties  is  that 
noticed  by  Sir  W.  Hamilton  into  the  Gnostic  and  Orective, 
adopted  by  Aristotle's  commentator,  Philoponus. 


72  APPENDIX. 

This  is  a  distinction,  noticed  not  only  by  Philoponus,  but  by 
others  who  follow  Aristotle,  such  as  Thomas  Aquinas,  who,  in 
philosophy,  seems  to  me  to  be  the  most  judicious  of  the  school- 
men. (See  Appendix  B.) 

In  De  Anima,  II.  2,  Nutritive,  Sense-Perception,  Discursive, 
Motive,  OperrriKov,  cucr^TtKoV,  SiavorjriKOV,  KIVT]<TL<S. 

Again,  De  Anima,  II.  3,  Nutrition,  Sense-Perception,  Appe- 
tence, Local  Motive,  Discursive  Power,  OpeirnKov,  alo-OrjTLKov, 
ope/CTiKoV,  KivrjTLKov  KciTa  TOTTOV,  Sictvo^TiKoV. 

Again,  De  Anima,  III.  10,  Nutrition,  Sense-Perception,  Cog- 
nition, Will,  Appetence,  ^peTm/coV,  aicr6r)Tu<6v,  VOT/TIKOI/,  /3ovXev- 

TlKoV,   O/DCKTlKoV. 

Throwing  out  nutrition,  which  is  a  physiological  process,  and 
taking  sense-perception  and  the  discursive  power  together,  as 
cognitive  powers,  and  similarly  together  Will  and  Appetence,  we 
have  the  two  forms,  the  Cognitive  and  Motive. 

He  sums  up  the  powers  in  two  groups,  under  a  different  no- 
menclature :  — 

De  Anima,  III.  9,  TO  xpiriKov  and  TO  KIVCLV  rrjv  Kara  TOTTOV 
Kivrjo'iv  (TO  KLVT/JTIKOV)  ;  discerning  and  motive. 

De  Anima,  III.  9,  If  a  tripartite  division  of  the  soul  is  made, 
in  each  there  is  ope£ts,  for  Will  is  in  the  rational  or  intelligent 
part  ;  and  in  the  non-rational  part,  desire  and  impulse,  yj  ti 


So  we  have  the  Soul  defined  as  that  in  which  we  live,  per- 
ceive, and  think,  that  is,  the  Vital  principle,  Sense-Perception, 
and  Discursive  Power,  II.  2. 

"  The  part  of  the  Soul  which  is  rational  is  divisible  into  two  : 
the  Will  (/SouAeuriKov),  and  the  Intelligent  (eVio-T^onicov). 
That  these  are  different  from  one  another,  may  appear  from 
their  objects  (^TroKet/aeva).  For  as  color  and  flavor  and  sound 
and  odor  are  different  from  one  another,  so  nature  has  made 
the  perception  of  them  different  :  sound  we  have  through  the 
hearing  sense,  flavor  by  the  taste,  and  color  by  the  sight  ;  so, 
likewise,  we  must  assume  the  same  arrangement  elsewhere, 
namely,  that,  since  the  objects  differ,  there  are  different  parts 
of  the  soul  by  which  we  get  knowledge  of  them.  That  which 


APPENDIX.  73 

is  perceived  by  the  reason  (TO  voyrov)  is  different  from  that 
which  is  perceived  by  the  senses ;  and  as  we  know  both  by  the 
mind,  there  must  therefore  be  a  part  which  has  to  do  with  the 
objects  of  sense-perception,  different  from  that  which  has  to  do 
with  the  things  perceived  by  the  reason."  This  last  quotation  is 
from  the  "  Magna  Moralia  "  (I.  35),  which,  if  not  written  by 
Aristotle,  was  written  by  some  one  who  felt  his  influence. 

Aristotle  on  Sense-Perception.  —  There  is  the  frequently 
quoted  passage  :  "  Sense-Perception  is  the  power  of  perceiving 
the  form  (etSos)  of  sensible  objects  without  the  accompanying 
matter  (uA??),  just  as  the  wax  takes  the  figure  of  the  seal  without 
the  iron  or  gold  which  makes  the  ring."  De  Anima,  II.  12. 

He  enunciates  what  I  regard  as  the  true  doctrine,  and  which 
I  have  quoted  in  the  text.  De  Sensu,  2,  TO  aia-Oyrbv  Ivepytiv 
Trotet  TTJV  aiaO^iv. 

He  gives  to  the  senses  the  power  of  a  certain  kind  of  know- 
ledge. "  Animals  participate  in  a  certain  kind  of  knowledge, 
some  more,  some  less,  some,  indeed,  very  little ;  they  have  sense- 
perception,  and  sense-perception  is  a  certain  kind  of  knowledge  "  : 
•yvwtrews  TIVOS  iravra  /ACTCXOVO-I,  TO.  /xei/  TrAciovos,  TO,  8*  eAarrovos, 
TO.  Se  TrdfJLTrav  //.i/cpas  •  cuo^o-iv  yap  l^ovo-tv,  vj  8'  aur^o-is  yvwo-ts 
TIS.  This  passage  is  very  decisive  as  to  man,  and  all  animals 
having  knowledge,  —  a  certain  kind  of  knowledge.  De  Anim. 
Gen.,  I.  23. 

He  assures  us  that  the  perceptions  of  the  senses  are  always 
true,  <u  //,€!>  cuo-0iyo-ets  aXrjOeiS  cuet'.  De  Anima,  III.  3. 

He  shows  that  the  deceptions  of  the  senses  are  merely  appa- 
rent. He  saw  that  the  difficulties  might  be  cleared  up  by  attend- 
ing to  what  each  sense  testifies,  and  separating  the  associated 
imagination  and  opinions,  or  judgments.  De  Anima,  III.  1, 3,  6. 

He  tells  us  :  "  It  is  not  possible  to  have  knowledge  till  one 
comes  to  individual  things."  Metaph.,  I.  2,  11. 

He  announces  a  realistic  doctrine :  "A  man  can  think  (vofja-ai) 
whenever  he  wishes,  but  not  so  exercise  perception,  for  the  ob- 
ject must  be  there  :  "  Siavorja-ai  //.«/  €TT'  avro3,  OTTOTGLV  /3ovAr;Tat, 
al(T0a.V€(rOai  S'  ou/c  €TT'  OUTW  •  avayKalov  yap  \nrap\€.iv  TO 
De  Anima,  II.  5. 


74  APPENDIX. 

"  The  sensible  object  removed  removes  the  perception,  but  the 
perceptive  faculty,  on  the  other  hand  (removed),  does  not  re- 
move the  object  of  perception  "  :  TO  fj.lv  cuo-0??Tov  avaipStv  <rvv- 
avatpei  rrjv  alfrOrjcnv,  17  8*  aicr&rjcrLS  TO  alcrOrjTOV  ov  crwaipei.  Cdt- 
egor.j  5. 

Aristotle  has  not  only  individual  senses,  he  has  a  master  sense, 
TO  Kvpiov  alffOrjT^pLoV)  or  a  common  sense,  KOii/ry  cuo^o-is.  This 
faculty  distinguishes  between  the  different  sorts  of  Sense-Percep- 
tion, sight,  taste,  etc.,  and  synthesizes  and  comprehends  various 
perceptions  as  belonging  to  one  object,  De  Anima,  III.  "  There 
is  a  common  power  which  accompanies  all  the  separate  parts,  by 
which  the  mind  perceives  alike  that  it  sees  and  that  it  hears ; 
for  not  by  the  sense  of  sight  does  the  mind  see  that  it  sees ;  and 
it  distinguishes,  and  is  able  to  distinguish,  for  example,  that 
'  sweet '  is  different  from  '  bright,'  neither  by  taste  nor  by 
sight,  nor  by  both  these  together,  but  by  some  common  faculty 
('  mental  part,'  //.o'pioi/),  working  with  all  the  instruments  of  sense- 
perception.  For  perception  is  single,  and  the  master  sense  is 
single."  De  Somno,  II. 

It  is  to  be  regretted,  I  think,  that  at  the  time  of  Aristotle,  and 
for  some  ages  after,  the  Greeks  had  not  given  a  place  to  self- 
consciousness.  To  it  should  have  been  allotted  the  power  which 
the  mind  has  of  seeing  that  it  sees.  I  believe  it  was  not  till 
towards  the  time  of  M.  Aurelius,  in  the  middle  of  the  second 
century  after  Christ,  that  self-consciousness,  o-wei'S^cris,  had  a 
separate  and  important  place  allotted  to  it. 

Metaphysicians  will  find  it  necessary  in  these  times,  when 
philosophical  inquiry  seems  to  be  tending  towards  nescience,  to 
look  to  and  consider  the  views  held  by  the  great  leader  of 
thought  for  a  millennium,  and  by  those  who  were  led  by  him. 
Reality,  with  the  capacity  of  knowing  it,  is  the  one  thing  neces- 
sary to  make  knowledge  consistent  in  itself,  and  consistent  with 
our  nature.  It  is  the  one  thing  needful  to  introduce  in  order  to 
meet  the  agnosticism  to  which  Huxley  and  Spencer  are  reducing 
all  philosophical  inquiry.  The  common  opponents  of  Spencer 
and  of  agnosticism  leave  this  out,  and  their  replies  are  inconclu- 
sive, and  are  felt  to  be  unsatisfactory. 


APPENDIX.  75 


APPENDIX  B. 

It  may  serve  a  good  purpose  to  give  the  views  of  Saint 
Thomas,  the  angelical  doctor,  on  the  same  subjects  ("  Summa 
Theologica,"  P.  1,  Quaest.  Ixxxv.  6).  He  quotes  Augustine : 
Omnis  qui  fallitur,  id  in  quo  fallitur,  non  intelligit.  Aristotle 
is  quoted  as  "  the  Philosopher  "  :  intellectus  semper  est  verus. 
He  discusses  his  subject,  and  his  conclusion  is  :  Cum  quidditas 
rei  sit  proprium  objectum  intellectus,  nunquam  contingit  circa 
ipsum  falli  nisi  per  accidens,  prout  ipsi  compositio  vel  divisio, 
seu  discursus  admiscetur,  in  quibus  fallitur  quandoque.  He 
approves  Aristotle  :  Sensus  enim  circa  proprium  objectum  non 
decipitur,  sicut  visus  circa  colorem,  nisi  forte  per  accidens  in 
impedimento  circa  organum  contingente.  He  sums  up  :  Ad  pri- 
mum  ergo  dicendum  quod  falsitas  dicitur  esse  in  mente  secun- 
dum  compositionem  et  divisionem.  Et  similiter  dicendum  est  ad 
secundum  de  opinione  et  ratiocinatione.  Et  ad  tertium  de  errore 
peccantium  qui  consistit  in  applicatione  ad  appetibile.  Sed  in 
absoluta  consideratione  quidditatis  rei  et  eorum  quae  per  earn 
cognoscuntur,  intellectus  nunquam  decipitur. 


APPENDIX  C. 

RECENT   CRITICISMS    OF   KANT. 

There  are  some  indications  that  the  recoil  against  the  com- 
bined Idealism  and  Nescience  of  Kant  has  commenced.  Dr. 
Hutchison  Stirling  announces  emphatically  that  Kant  has  not 
answered  Hume,  and  that  never  has  the  world  been  so  befooled 
by  a  system  as  it  has  been  befooled  by  the  system  of  Kant.  He 
uses  very  strong  language.  He  declares  the  system  of  Kant  to 
be  "  a  vast  and  prodigious  failure,"  and  his  method  as  only  "a 
laborious,  baseless,  inapplicable  superfetation."  —  Princeton  Re- 
vieiv,  Jan.,  1879. 

I  may  quote  a  little  more  fully  from  Stahlen :  "  Kant's  aim 
was  to  vindicate  the  objectivity  of  human  knowledge  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  scepticism  of  Hume.  This  he  deemed  possible  only 


76  APPENDIX. 

in  one  way,  namely,  by  showing  that  that  which  gives  objective 
validity  and  necessity  to  our  knowledge  of  things  is  to  be  found, 
not  in  the  things  themselves,  but  in  the  human  mind  itself." 
He  goes  on  :  "  Kant's  intention  was  to  establish  the  reality  of 
our  knowledge  in  opposition  to  the  scepticism  of  Hume.  But 
what  he  meant  to  be  a  rescue  turns  out  to  be  rather  an  entire 
overthrow  of  the  knowledge  of  objective  truth.  For  the  method 
which  he  follows  tends  to  show  that  what  we  know  is  merely  the 
phenomenal  appearance,  not  the  truth  nor  the  thing  itself."  But 
what  is  the  phenomenal  ?  The  answer  is,  "  Phenomenon  in  the 
Kantian  sense  is  not  objective  but  subjective  phenomenon,  that 
is,  it  is  not  a  coming  to  light  or  coming  forward  of  the  thing 
itself,  but  purely  a  mode  in  which  we  represent  things,  an  affec- 
tion of  our  sensibility,  a  modification  of  our  consciousness  which 
reveals  nothing  whatever  of  the  nature  of  the  thing  as  it  is  in 
itself." 

This,  I  may  remark,  is  the  very  objection  which  I  have  been 
taking  for  years  past,  that  Kant  makes  the  mind  start  with  ap- 
pearances instead  of  things,  and  that  we  cannot  know  things 
except  under  forms  imposed  by  our  own  minds.  He  insists : 
"  Objective  knowledge,  a  knowledge  of  anything  that  has  actu- 
ality outside  and  independently  of  our  consciousness,  there  is 
none."  This  is  true  not  only  of  tilings  external  to  ourselves, 
but  of  the  mind  itself,  as  Kant  is  constantly  asserting  that  "  we 
do  not  know  even  ourselves,  but  merely  as  we  appear  to  our- 
selves." He  says  I  have  no  right  to  say  that  a  thing  is,  if  I  am 
in  entire  ignorance  how  or  what  it  is  (p.  26),  an  objection  which, 
I  may  add,  I  have  been  constantly  taking.  I  have  been  par- 
ticularly pleased  with  the  following  extract  from  Zeller :  — 
"  But,  however  unworthy  of  acknowledgment  the  prudence 
with  which  Kant  refrained  from  drawing  the  extreme  conclu- 
sions of  his  idealism,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  this  very 
course  involved  him  in  great  difficulties.  Not  only  when  the 
general  postulates  of  his  system  were  denied,  but  also  when 
these  were  admitted,  there  were  still  to  be  found  many  pro- 
foundly critical  questions  left  unanswered,  many  a  doubt  un- 
solved. This  was  true  especially  of  Kant's  positions  concerning 


APPENDIX.  77 

the  thing  in  itself  (Ding  an  Sick).  On  the  one  hand,  for  in- 
stance, on  the  supposition  that  direct  experience  presents  things 
to  us  only  under  the  forms  of  perception  and  thought,  only  as 
phenomena,  the  question  could  still  be  raised  whether  it  had 
really  been  proven  that  the  essence  of  things  is  of  necessity  un- 
knowable for  us,  whether  we  possess  no  means  of  determining 
their  essence  through  the  observation  and  comparison  of  phe- 
nomena. If.  on  the  other  hand,  the  complete  incognizability  of 
the  thing  in  itself  was  granted,  the  question  still  emerged,  whence, 
then,  can  we  obtain  any  knowledge  of  its  bare  existence  ?  If  I 
know  absolutely  nothing  of  what  an  object  is,  I  cannot  know 
whether  it  is,  and  that  it  is ;  for  every  assertion  concerning  the 
existence  of  a  thing  presupposes  some  concept  of  the  thing  whose 
existence  is  affirmed,  no  matter  how  incomplete  this  concept 
may  be.  When  Kant  endeavored  to  show  the  existence  of  things 
outside  us,  he  understood  by  these  at  best  some  reality  apart 
from  us,  which  occasions  our  sensations;  when  he  demanded 
belief  in  a  Deity,  he  understood  by  Deity  the  independent  cause 
of  the  world.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  he  maintained  that  we 
can  know  absolutely  nothing  of  the  thing  in  itself,  that  it  is  an 
unknown  JT,  a  mere  problematic  or  limitative  concept,  this  re- 
quired that  he  should  leave  it  completely  undetermined  whether 
any  reality  apart  from  us  exists  at  all.  His  explanation  of  the 
idea  of  cause  as  a  category  of  the  understanding,  which  as  such 
is  applicable  to  phenomena  alone,  should  have  prevented  him 
from  applying  it  to  the  thing  in  itself,  from  postulating  this  thing 
as  the  cause  of  our  presentations.  Nay,  he  should  have  gone 
further,  and  have  said  straight  out  that  we  have  no  ground  for 
the  assumption  of  the  thing  in  itself,  that  it  is  of  no  service  in 
the  explanation  of  phenomena,  that  it  only  marks  the  limit  of 
our  activity,  and  as  such  it  can  in  itself  lie  just  as  well  within  as 
without  us.  This  deduction  was  in  reality  drawn  before  long  in 
the  Kantian  school,  the  more  readily,  the  more  undeniable  it  is 
that  Kant's  refutation  of  idealism,  and  his  moral  argument  for 
the  existence  of  God,  are  far  removed  from  the  validity  of  strict 
demonstration."  —  Zeller's  "  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Philoso- 
phic seit  Leibnitz,"  pp.  414,  415  (second  edition). 


78  APPENDIX. 

APPENDIX   D. 

THE   OFFICE   OF   INDUCTION    IN   FUNDAMENTAL   PHILOSOPHY. 

I  have  had  great  difficulty  in  getting  a  hearing  for  one  point 
in  my  philosophic  views.  In  the  discovery  of  a  priori  truth  I 
allot  an  important  function  to  inductive  observation.  This  seems 
to  identify  me  with  the  empiricists,  from  whom  I  entirely  sepa- 
rate myself.  I  hold  that  there  is  no  induction  in  the  spontane- 
ous exercise  of  intuition ;  it  sees  the  object  at  once.  But  if  we, 
as  metaphysicians,  express  the  law  in  a  general  form  or  law,  we 
need  to  proceed  by  a  careful  observation,  the  facts  being  given 
us  by  self-consciousness.  We  have  to  inquire  what  is  the  pre- 
cise a  priori  law,  say  of  causation,  as  it  manifests  itself.  If  we 
neglect  to  do  this,  there  is  a  great  risk  of  presenting  the  princi- 
ple in  a  mutilated,  which  is,  so  far,  an  erroneous  form.  The 
vagaries  of  metaphysicians  commonly  spring  from  an  imperfect 
induction.  But  in  calling  in  induction  we  do  not  give  it  an 
authoritative  or  guaranteeing  office.  Induction  merely  lets  us 
know  what  the  law  in  the  mind  is  ;  it  does  not  give  it  its  impera- 
tiveness. It  needs  anxious  inspection  to  find  what  the  law  of 
causation  is,  but  the  law  operates  whether  we  observe  it  or  not. 
This  distinction  is  easily  understood  by  those  disposed  to  give 
their  attention.  It  saves  me  from  the  inconsistency  and  the  im- 
becility with  which  I  have  been  charged  in  a  recent  criticism. 
It  gives  to  reason  and  to  observation  each  its  proper  place  in  the 
construction  of  fundamental  philosophy.  It  may  be  made  the 
means  of  reconciling  the  Scottish  and  German  philosophies. 


14  DAY  USE 

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